


Walpurgisnacht

by Ptolemia



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Multi, Post-Season/Series 02, and sexual content (Sypha you’re doing amazing sweetie), rated M for language (mostly Trevor’s fault), trevor and sypha go look after alucard instead of leaving him on his own challenge (not clickbait), violence (mostly Alucard’s fault)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-08-19 08:19:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 89,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16530878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ptolemia/pseuds/Ptolemia
Summary: Two cold and lonely travellers take refuge in a mysterious castle... a castle which contains AT LEAST 0.5 vampires. And then they get snowed in.Flirtation ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

“This is all your fault, Sypha,” Trevor grumbles, as a fresh flurry of snow manages to blow itself directly into the single patch of bared skin between the clasp of his cloak and his shirt.

Sypha has the nerve to look surprised, turning round and blinking her wide blue eyes up at him with an expression of deep bemusement. “Who, me?”

“No, I was talking to the other Sypha travelling with us, of course- yes, you! Look at this!” He gestures expansively at the blizzard around them, and is rewarded with another gust of snow down the front of his collar for his troubles. “I can’t even see three feet in front of my face! And it’s fucking _freezing_.”

She sniffs, turning her attention back to the small flame in her hands and gesturing it forward to melt a path through the snow ahead. “Oh honestly, Trevor, you can hardly blame me for the weather.”

“Well I _can_ blame you for the weather…”

“Alright, yes, you can, but it’s very silly. I didn’t ask for it to snow.”

“But you were the one who wanted to come here!”

“Well, I didn’t know the weather would be so…” she shudders, burrowing into the hood of her cape, “So _cold_. You might have warned me about that – after all, you did grow up here.”

“I suppose I did.” Trevor sighs. “God, maybe it’s _my_ fault that we’re both going to die in this blizzard.”

Sypha flashes him a beaming smile. “You know, I think that’s the most responsibility I’ve ever heard you take for your own actions. I’m so proud of you. And as for dying, I think you’re being perfectly ridiculous - I’m sure we’ll be fine. After all, it can’t be far now… let me check the map…”

 

The flame she’s been using to clear snow ahead of them sputters out as she fumbles around in her bag, frowning slightly. After several alarming clunking noises as she rummages through the baffling array of clutter in her satchel, she withdraws the (by now rather crumpled) map with a delighted, “Aha! There you are.” She squints down at the parchment, clearly struggling slightly now the light of the fire is gone, and then squints up and around her at the swirling storm of white. “Ah,” she says, with a dawning look of realisation, “Oh, this map isn’t so useful when I can’t actually, uh, see anything.”

“We’re going to _die_ ,” groans Trevor. “We’re going to die and be frozen in the snow and then in the spring Alucard is going to find us thawing out like horrible defrosting meat-popsicles in his back yard and laugh at our foolishness. Urgh. _Urgh_!”

Sypha smacks him on the arm with the map before tucking it away. “Don’t be ridiculous, Alucard won’t laugh! He would be very sad if we died.” She contemplates this for a moment. “Well. He would be sad about me dying, anyway.”

“Oh, so you admit we’re going to die?”

“No! Stop being so silly. We can’t be more than a mile or two from the castle by now, so if we just keep going straight ahead we’re bound to bump into it. It’s very big, after all.”

In spite of both his own common sense (minimal) and the severity of the situation (considerable), Trevor can’t help but mutter a quiet, “Ha, that’s what she said,” which Sypha quite sensibly ignores. Instead, she summons the flame again and begins to trudge forward, leading the way through the deep, fresh snow.

 

Trevor sighs and follows in her wake, wincing as the slush from her hastily melted path continues to soak into his boots. The squelching noise they make with every step – audible even over the howling of the ever-present wind - is not a particularly encouraging sound. Nor is the chesty wheeze he’s beginning to develop in the biting air. Urgh. A Belmont, he thinks, ought to be made of stronger stuff. Then again, a Belmont probably shouldn’t be dicking about trudging through miles of snow to go and (Sypha’s words, not his) ‘check up on Alucard, the poor dear’ - a man who is not only an ass but also a _vampire_ , for Christ’s sake. Well. Half vampire. Half vampire, half man, one hundred percent ass. Trevor smirks. He'll have to remember that one to use on Alucard when they finally make it to the castle. _If_ they make it to the castle; the blizzard doesn’t seem to be letting up and despite Sypha’s optimistic pathmaking, they really don’t have any way of working out exactly where they are unless visibility improves drastically.

 

It takes them the better part of two hours before – by sheer dumb luck – they eventually stumble upon the castle. Trevor is so pre-occupied thinking up new insults to use when they next see Alucard that he walks straight into Sypha when she stops, and knocks her face-first into a snow drift.

“I saw it!” she says, as he hauls her out of the snow with a vague apologetic mumble, “I saw the castle! It’s just up ahead.”

Trevor squints. “If you say so…”

 

But it’s only another few paces before another gust of wind blows an eddy of snow around a shape ahead which… yes! There it is! As they approach, the castle looms out of the snow-white air with what ought to be great and terrible menace, only Trevor is too cold to feel especially menaced. Instead he just feels relieved at the thought of a warm fire. And food. Maybe even a bath? Perhaps that’s taking it too far, since he already had one a week or two back. Trevor is a firm believer that a person shouldn’t want to bathe _too_ much; it’s unhealthy, or something. Probably.

 

Sypha springs ahead of him up the steps, clearly energised by the prospect of not having to stand outside in the world’s shittiest weather conditions for much longer, and raps sharply on the door. The sound is swallowed up by the wind. She frowns, and tries again. Trevor comes to stand next to her, and knocks too, but after a fairly miserable and bitingly cold few minutes of waiting, it seems clear that they haven’t been heard.

“Maybe he’s gone out?” says Sypha, peering up at Trevor through iced-over lashes.

Trevor glances at the snowstorm around them. “Uh, somehow I don’t think so. And if he has, he’s stuck in the same shitty blizzard we are, so…”

“Try knocking again?”

Trevor tries knocking again.

 

And again.

 

… and again.

 

Eventually he turns to Sypha. “Yeah, so, I don’t think he can hear us. Or maybe he can hear us, and he just doesn’t want to answer.”

Sypha sighs, and flops down onto the step in front of the door. “No! Why would he do that?” Trevor sits down next to her and she curls into his shoulder with a little sigh. “Perhaps,” she muses, “he thinks we are door-to-door salesmen, and that’s why he’s ignoring the knocking.”

Trevor snorts. “Door-to-door salesmen? At Dracula’s castle? In the middle of a blizzard?”

Sypha contemplates this for a moment, before nodding her head. “I suppose that would be pretty silly. Perhaps I’ve been reading too many cheap novellas. Oh, this is just awful! The worst! What are we going to do?”

“Probably die right here on the doorstep like poor starving orphans,” muses Trevor, slinging a companionable arm around Sypha’s shoulders, “Hey, if we do, let’s haunt Alucard, ok? I’d like that.”

Sypha rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to haunt Alucard, he’s already got a lot going on, you know, emotionally. He doesn’t need to add vengeful ghosts to that whole mess.”

“It would be pretty funny, though.”

She snickers. “It would. But no! No haunting. And no dying, either, come to think of it! There must be a way to…” she springs up again, showering Trevor in the dusting of snow that had already gathered on her shoulders as she sat, and glares at the door.

 

“That door isn’t going to open itself just because you’re giving it the evil eye,” says Trevor, standing with a sigh and attempting to brush some of the snow off his cloak. “But hey, look, if you want to make a last-minute confession of your deep and meaningful feelings for me before we both perish in the terrible icy cold-”

“Only if you confess first!” says Sypha, brightly, as she begins to rummage through her bag. “Now where did I put…”

Trevor has to give it to her, that’s a pretty effective way to call his bluff. Damn. She’s good. Really, it’s a shame that neither of them _does_ have intense but clearly repressed feelings for the other, because they’re both such beautiful people and he really would like to… kiss… Sypha…

Wait. Does that mean-

 

“Aha!” says Sypha, jolting Trevor out of his train of thought as she draws a large, blunt-handled dagger from her bag. “This should do it. Now, let me just…” She sighs, and draws the blade, trying to wiggle the point into the gap between the vast double doors.

“Is that a good idea?” says Trevor.

“Oh, I’ve done it before,” she says, gritting her teeth, “Mind you, that was a while back, and I’m not too sure if the lock on this will… hmm. Oh. Oh I think I’ve get the blade stuck now, hang on…”

“Alright, ok,” says Trevor, clasping Sypha’s arm as she leans her weight into yanking the dagger out of the door, “hey, hand me that thing before you break it, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to bust down what is almost certainly a magical door with your cheese knife.”

 “I know, I know. Urgh!” She pulls the dagger free with a heave and sighs. “Now, if this was a rotten old door on a caravan I’d locked myself out of, that would be another story. I’m great with those.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. Yep.” She frowns down at the dagger, and bangs the pommel sharply on the door. It’s certainly louder than either of them managed before, but after a moment waiting it seems that there’s still no response from within. She bangs the door again, and sighs. “Maybe if I try to blast the door down? I mean, I probably could, it’s just a little rude, I guess. Hmm. What do you think?”

Trevor takes the dagger while she steps back, sizing up the situation, and bangs the pommel on the door with a sharp staccato rhythm. “Oh, by all means, go ahead. Anything that leads to me not dying and _also_ pisses off Alucard is a strong yes from me.”

“Trevor!”

“What?”

“You are so mean to him!”

Trevor shrugs. “He deserves it.”

“ _So_ mean! Ok, stand back a little, I’m going to blow the door in…”

 

Before she can summon up the magic to do so, however, the door swings open, revealing a baffled-looking Alucard, who shivers as an icy wind blows into the room beyond. His hair is wet, tumbling down over one shoulder, and there’s a soft blush playing over his cheekbones. And his shoulders and… also most of his body…

He’s only wearing a towel. God, of course he is. It’s not even a _big_ towel. Urgh. Why does he have to look so attractive all the time? Show-off. It’s really hard to nurse a deep enmity for somebody when they’re standing there with a slip of a towel hanging off their hips and, let’s be honest, the bone structure of a fucking god. Alucard is truly, sincerely, absolutely the _worst._

“Oh, Alucard!” trills Sypha, flinging herself forward and pulling him down into a tight hug, “I’m so glad to see you! We were going to break your door down!”

“You- I- you were _what?!_ ” splutters Alucard, wincing as Sypha showers snow over his mostly naked body. He narrows his eyes at Trevor. “And why the fuck do you have a knife?”

 

Trevor shrugs. “You know, I’m actually not entirely sure. Mind if I come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, starting yet another multichapter and ignoring the pressing weight of all those WIPs? it's more likely than you may think
> 
> (I promise I'll actually finish this though, it's for nano so... I Gotta. Should update every other day or so.)


	2. Chapter 2

After Alucard closes the doors and waves his guests into a nearby study, Sypha hurries off to the nearest bathroom. She’s clearly intent on launching herself into a warm bath at hitherto unprecedented speed, because she leaves the room in a tearing hurry, shedding damp layers of outer clothing down the corridor as she goes. Alucard follows, looking baffled but generally resigned, and picks up the damp articles of cloth as he goes, grumbling something inaudible about laundry and water stains on the antique carpets and _manners_ , god damn it.

 

When he returns to the study, Alucard has – much to Trevor’s chagrin – still not changed out of that blasted towel, presumably because he is a massive, awful, unrelenting show-off. A massive, awful, unrelenting show-off with genuinely great legs, but still.

He settles himself into a high-backed red armchair next to the fire and several paces away from the couch Trevor has stretched out on, and fixes him with an icy glare.

Trevor, never one to be outdone in the icy glare department, levels a similarly cool look back.

 

Alucard cracks first. “Can I enquire,” he says, carefully adjusting his towel with an expression of mild distaste, “as to why you are currently sprawled over my couch wearing only a very holey pair of underpants?”

Trevor shrugs. “My stuff was damp.”

“I… don’t follow.”

“My clothes were damp, ‘cos of all the snow, so I took them off. And now I’m sitting by the fire, generously preserving my modesty with my only SLIGHTLY holey underpants. Drying off. What’s complicated about that?”

Alucard blinks. “You… right. Alright. I see. Do you want a bath? Sypha is using the nearest one, but there are several other rooms which-”

Trevor shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Right. Then, do you perhaps want to borrow some clothes?”

“Pfft, more like, do YOU want to borrow some clothes?”

 

Alucard cocks his head. “Do I- what? What does that even mean, Belmont?”

“Well, I’m just pointing out that I’m not the only person here in a ridiculous state of undress.”

“You- really? That’s your issue? I was in the bath! And then I got out of the bath in a hurry to come and let you two idiots into my house before you _literally blew the door off_ , I- what else would I be wearing?”

“Well, a bigger towel, maybe.”

“You’re objecting to the size of my towel?”

Trevor shrugs. “I mean, I’m saying that if it were me, I would definitely have a bigger towel, but-”

 

At which point Sypha glides into the room in a drastically oversized bathrobe and a swirl of vaguely perfumed steam, and says, “Boys, boys, I’m sure you both have perfectly adequately sized towels. No need to fight.”

“Woah, ok, hang on-” says Trevor, just as Alucard splutters out a slightly choked,

“That’s not- it’s not like _that_.”

Sypha snickers. “Of course it isn’t. Also, why are you naked, Trevor?”

“I’m not naked! Look, I have underpants.”

“Oh, I’m looking. And Trevor?”

“Yeah?”

“Most of what I’m seeing is… not underwear. Those underpants are mostly made of holes, at this point. Don’t you know how to darn?”

“Well…”

 

Alucard waves an accusatory finger in Trevor’s direction. “I bet he doesn’t! He’s a menace! I don’t even know where he put all his damp clothes, and I swear if he’s managed to water-stain the carpet somewhere I’ll-”

Sypha frowns. “Hey, Alucard?”

“-kill him with my bare hands and bury-”

“Alucard!”

He blinks. “I- yes?”

“Your shoulder. What happened to it?”

 

Trevor hadn’t focused on it all that much before, but now Sypha mentions it… Alucard _does_ have a rather vivid bruise across the back of his left shoulder. It looks nasty, actually; slightly swollen and mottled and purple-looking.

“Oooh,” says Trevor, “Yeah, holy shit – how did you manage that?”

Alucard looks momentarily startled by the sudden intensity of the attention being paid to him. His ears turn a delicate shade of pink. “Oh, it was- uh, well, you know your library, Belmont?”

“Technically it’s _your_ library now, so legally I’m not responsible for anything that happens inside it, but go on.”

“Right. Sure. Well, as it turns out, there are some… interesting traps in there. I ran afoul of one of them. Of a few of them, actually. It’s, uh, been an eventful few weeks.”

 

“Well first off that’s hilarious,” says Trevor, “and I want you to take me down there next time you go so that I can see my ancestors’ warding spells hit you in the ass with poison darts or whatever-”

“Trevor!” scolds Sypha, batting at his arm with the oversized sleeve of her bathrobe.

“- and second off, how come none of the traps kicked off when you were in there before? I mean, it seemed fine while we were all down there together, right?”

Sypha nods in agreement. “I certainly didn’t notice anything.”

Alucard makes a noncommittal gesture. “True, although we weren’t there awfully long, as it goes. I suspect that Trevor being present perhaps made a difference, with his being Belmont blood and all that. Besides, it’s not as though I’m setting off every single trap; some of the magical ones I’ve walked right into and they don’t seem to respond. And then some of them are just straight-up pressure plates. One of them flung a surprisingly well-preserved custard pie directly into my face upon activation.”

Even Sypha has to snort at that, to Alucard’s evident displeasure. Trevor nods sagely; “Ah, that’ll be one of Great Uncle Augustine’s. Classic. Truly, a man ahead of his time.”

Alucard purses his lips. “Well, I’m certainly glad that _you_ , at least, are finding this funny.”

“I mean, it’s pretty hilarious. Weird that you’re only setting some of the traps off, though.”

“I suppose I am… difficult to categorise. I rather suspect that the spellwork on some of the wards considers me human enough to ignore, but others…” he rubs his shoulder ruefully. “Others, not so much.”

“And I guess my ancestors didn’t think to prepare for their wayward heir handing the whole shebang over to a half-vampire.”

At that, Alucard does have to crack a little smirk. “Probably not.”

 

Then he stands, stretching his arms out with a delicate little yawn. The towel, by some kind of demi-vampiric hipbone miracle, does not fall, but it shifts just a fraction lower. Really, it makes no sense that it hasn’t fallen down by now. Trevor catches Sypha staring, and raises an eyebrow. She raises an eyebrow back, which… well, fair enough.

 

“Well, if you two don’t mind sitting around here for a little while,” says Alucard, with another luxurious little stretch, “I’m going to go and finish my bath which you so rudely interrupted.”

“’Rudely interrupted’ my ass,” says Trevor, “I mean, if anything you’re the rude one, for making us wait so long out in the cold that we almost _died_.”

“He probably didn’t hear us,” says Sypha, trailing over toward one of the bookcases and running her fingers absent-mindedly along the spines. “After all, it’s a very big house.”

“Oh, no, I heard,” says Alucard, with a yawn, “but I was enjoying my bath.”

“Alucard!” Sypha fixes him with one of the glares she normally reserves for Trevor. “That’s so mean of you! You know we were freezing out there?”

“Well, I didn’t know it was _you_ , did I?”

“It doesn’t matter who it is - in this sort of weather, you ought to let people in! What if some poor soul had frozen to death, right on your doorstep?”

“No, I wasn’t expecting anyone, so… well. Only a door-to-door salesman would have the nerve to knock at the gates of Dracula’s castle without express invitation. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with that.”

Sypha claps her hands together, delighted; “See, Trevor, what did I tell you? He thought we were salespeople.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” says Trevor, flatly.

Alucard shakes his head. “Not at all. Father used to complain no end about it. Door-to-door merchants, peddling their wares at all hours of the night and day. I mean, the peasants always kept away, but not the salesmen. Oh no! They had no respect for the terrifying grandeur of the castle – no sense of fear at all! And of course, mother would never let him eat them. ‘But back in the day we used to eat them,’ he would say, ‘it was so much easier back then, when I could just impale them on huge metal spikes outside the castle walls, and then they wouldn’t come back… oh, go on, let me eat this one Lisa, door-to-door salesmen hardly count as humans, after all…’ and so on. He wasn’t serious about that, though, of course.” He frowns. “I mean, I don’t _think_ he was. Hmm.”

Sypha and Trevor both stare at him. Eventually Sypha ventures a rather hesitant, “Uh, that’s… nice?”

 

“Hmm,” says Alucard, shaking his head slightly. “Well, maybe let’s not talk about that. Now, you don’t mind waiting here while I finish my bath, do you? I’ll find you some rooms that haven’t been… damaged. You know. In the fight, when we… well. Well. Anyway, I shouldn’t be long. And I’ll see if I can dig up some clean clothes, there must be some in one of the guest rooms… I’d be more organised, usually, but I’ve been a bit…” he waves a hand vaguely, “busy. And I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

“Don’t worry, Alucard,” says Sypha, reaching out to give his hand a gentle squeeze, “You take as long as you want, alright?”

He raises her hand to his lips and presses a gentle kiss to it. “Thank you. Things have been a little fractious, lately. It’s good to have company.” And then he smiles, turns on his heel, and abruptly heads off out of the room and down the corridor.

 

“Do you think he’s alright?” says Sypha, nudging Trevor’s legs aside so she can curl up on the couch next to him.

“I mean, he seems a bit put out to have unexpected guests…”

“He does a little, doesn’t he?”

“And dealing with the whole Belmont library is clearly a pain in the ass…”

“True.”

“And I guess he’s probably still dealing with the emotional repercussions of murdering his own father in his childhood home…”

“Ah. Yes.”

“But, uh, other than that he seems fine? I guess?”

Sypha bites her lip. “I’m glad we came to check on him. It’s probably good for him to have company.” She frowns, contemplative. “Unless he needed space, and now we’re bothering him… well, I suppose if that’s the case we can always leave and come back another time, can’t we?”

“About that,” says Trevor, glancing toward the far wall where the single ground-floor window is steadily being submerged in a drift of soft, fresh snow, “I have a funny feeling that we might not be going anywhere for a while…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i guess alucard will have to actually wear some clothes in the next chapter, everybody press f to pay respects,


	3. Chapter 3

“I still can’t believe that you can cook,” says Trevor, shaking his head in mock dismay, “I mean, don’t you have servants for that sort of thing?”

Alucard purses his lips. “I- yes, usually I would. Unfortunately, all my servants are dead.”

“Ah.”

“There was a really big fight here.”

“I-”

“You were there.”

“Yeah I-”

“Perhaps you even killed some of them? Who knows. I was a wolf for a lot of that fight. It gets a bit hazy.”

Alucard is now stirring the pot in front of him with what can only be described as ‘unnecessary intensity’.

 

Trevor goes quiet, and for a moment the only sounds in the vast stone-walled kitchen are the clanking of the spoon against the pan, and Alucard’s slightly laboured breathing. Eventually, Sypha gives him A Look, so he mumbles out a quiet, “Sorry, Alucard.”

Alucard sniffs disdainfully. “It’s fine. Anyway, yes, I can cook, but I don’t enjoy it and if I can possibly avoid it, I do.”

“Well, one of us could have cooked if you’d rather not,” says Sypha, nudging Trevor’s arm; “isn’t that right, Trevor?”

“I mean-” begins Trevor, but Alucard cuts him off.

“Absolutely not. I’ve seen what happens when both of you cook.”

Trevor shrugs. It’s not an invalid point. Sypha, however, takes on an affectation of great offence; “Hey! My cooking isn’t that bad!”

Alucard puts the spoon down and turns to face her with an expression of utter disbelief. “I once saw you burn an _egg_. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“We’ve all made mistakes!”

“Yes but you- how does somebody even… I mean why were you putting a boiled egg over the fire in the first place?”

“… I wanted to toast it.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” sniffs Sypha, defensively.

“And that,” says Alucard, picking up the spoon and returning to his stew pot, “is why you are not allowed to cook.”

 

Sypha turns to Trevor for support, but he raises his palms in defeat. “Hey, hey, don’t look at me. I hate to say it, but on this front, I’m with fangs over there.”

“Oh! You are both such big bullies to me! Fine. You will have to cook for me, then. I want… steak. Expensive steak.”

“Well, I’m making stew,” says Alucard, “so that will have to suffice.”

“I want… caviar,” declares Sypha, scrambling up to stand on her chair and gesturing wildly. “I want strawberries and cream and I want a whole roast chicken! Right now!”

“Again,” says Alucard, his deadpan tone slightly ruined by the fact he’s smiling softly at her over his shoulder, “I’m making stew.”

Sypha hops off the chair and skips over to Alucard. “I want pastries,” she says, catching his free hand in hers, “I want those teeny little French ones with custard and fruit on top, you know? Mmm, and I want marzipan cake. I love marzipan.”

“That, my darling Sypha, is frankly perverse,” says Alucard, with a disdainful sniff; “marzipan is the work of the devil.”

“As if you would care about that!”

Alucard points sternly at her. “Listen. There will be no marzipan cake in my good Christian household.”

“I’m heartbroken,” pouts Sypha. “Heartbroken!”

“But,” says Alucard, turning away from the stove again before spinning Sypha around and pulling her toward him with a grin, “pastries I can do. Will that satisfy you?”

Sypha laughs delightedly, resting her free hand on Alucard’s chest and beaming up at him. “Really? You’ll make pastries? Oh, I’d love that.”

 

The two of them make, Trevor has to admit, a strangely charming picture. Sypha is still wearing the same ludicrously oversized bathrobe from earlier, and she’s left her hair drying any which way and curling up at all sorts of improbable angles but it somehow still looks cute and not even a bit like an angry hedgehog (which is, he has been reliably informed, what Trevor’s hair ends up looking like if he doesn’t brush it while it’s wet). Alucard has (finally, thank god) ditched the towel, but he’s changed into one of his stupid billowy shirts and pulled his hair up into a messy bun. And he’s wearing a stupid little apron, too. They both ought to look ridiculous, but somehow they look… nice. And Trevor has a moment where he thinks, god, it’s been a long, long time since he’s had friends like these. Or friends at all, come to think of it. And isn’t it wonderful, after everything, to be somewhere warm and dry and cosy with two people who genuinely make him smile.

 

Of course, he doesn’t say that. What he says is, “Fuck you, Alucard.”

Alucard blinks. “What?”

“Well, when I ask if you can cook you say you hate it, but Sypha bats her eyelashes at you and you’re suddenly down to make fucking _pastries_?! What a joke.”

Alucard sniffs. “Making pastries doesn’t count as cooking, Trevor. It’s baking. That’s completely different.”

“That’s- you- oh come on,” Trevor splutters, “that’s ridiculous! You don’t really believe that, you’re just falling for her- for her... womanly wiles. Obviously. Why don’t you want to cook things for _me_ , huh?”

“I am literally, right at this moment, cooking your dinner.”

“You-” Trevor hesitates, momentarily stumped. “Okay, so, that’s true, I guess, but…”

Sypha giggles. “Are you jealous, Trevor?”

“I- no! Why would I be- that’s- ridiculous I-”

 

Sypha disentangles herself from Alucard and perches on Trevor’s lap, putting her hands on either side of his face and shaking her head. “You are! Look, you’re going all red, it’s adorable.” She pinches his cheek and laughs; “You know, you look just like a big, sad, miserable little puppy. It’s so cute.”

“Uh,” says Alucard, peering over at Trevor and Sypha clearly feeling a little left-footed, “I mean, I can definitely make enough pastries for three so… no need to be jealous?”

“What?” says Trevor.

“What?” says Sypha.

“Because he was jealous about you getting pastries while he went without, so…” He pauses, spoon in hand. “This _is_ about pastries, right?”

 

“You know what,” says Trevor, shifting a disgruntled Sypha off his lap and standing up from the chair, “that is exactly what I was jealous about, and now I have been offered pastries of my own I am entirely cured of that jealousy. So. There.”

Sypha looks from Trevor, to Alucard, then back to Trevor, and sighs deeply. “Wow. You two are… so much, sometimes. You know that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Alucard, reaching up to pull the ribbon from his hair and shaking his head so that it tumbles down his shoulders in a delicate golden cascade. “The stew is ready, by the way.”

 

“I have to say,” says Trevor, blatantly ignoring Sypha’s frustrated expression as she mouths a soundless ‘what the _fuck_ ’ at Alucard’s antics, “I didn’t picture stew being a big feature of the average vampire’s dinner menu.”

“It isn’t,” says Alucard, smoothly, carefully divesting himself of his apron and slinging it over the back of a chair. “The average vampire’s dinner menu is a little more… mm, how shall I put this… human-shaped. So I guess you’re lucky that I’m not a vampire, hmm?”

“I mean, you are a vampire a _little_ bit.”

“A little bit,” Alucard concedes, with a graceful nod.

Trevor narrows his eyes. “So when you’re not eating stew, you still eat people… a little bit?”

“Only if they ask very nicely.” He winks, and Sypha stifles a giggle. “Look, if you’re worried about me chasing you down and draining you of all your blood, you really don’t need to be. I have stores here, down in the basement.”

“Wow. Sure. The fact you have a bunch of human blood stored in your fucking dungeon is so comforting, Alucard.”

Alucard bows sarcastically. “You’re welcome, Belmont.”

 

Trevor contemplates this for a moment. “So, you drink blood, but you also eat regular food, and sunlight is fine?”

“Mmhmm.”

“He burns a little, though,” says Sypha. “On his nose. And his cheekbones, too.”

“That’s true,” nods Alucard, “although I think that’s just sunburn, honestly.”

“It’s because you’re so pasty,” says Sypha, nodding sympathetically.

“Alright, so, sun is fine… what about garlic?” asks Trevor.

“Enjoyable in moderation. I personally find it a little…” Alucard wrinkles his nose, “A little pungent, for my taste. But it certainly won’t kill me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Holy water?”

“No, not really a problem. If I sit in it too long I get horrible rashes, though.”

“Huh… and what about stakes?”

“Belmont.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you planning to hunt me down and kill me? Is that something I should be aware of?”

Alucard asks the question lightly, and Trevor laughs, but he catches something a little tense in his friend’s gaze that makes him pause. “No! Alucard, come on. We’re… y’know, friends. Or whatever. Y’know. Colleagues.”

Sypha snorts at that, but the smile that spreads across Alucard’s face is sincere. “Thank you. I’m… glad to hear it.”

 

“Sooooo, you both admitting your feelings of, uh, collegiate comradery for one another - or whatever that was - is super cute and all, guys,” says Sypha, breaking a moment of warm silence that followed Alucard’s words, “but honestly, now Trevor’s brought it up… I kind of want to know… _would_ a stake kill you? I mean, if you can survive all that other stuff that regular vampires can’t…” She cocks her hear to one side, eyes wide.

Alucard sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright. Look. If I drove a stake through the heart of a full vampire, would it kill them?”

“Well… yeah.”

“And if, say, I drove a stake through Belmont’s heart, would it kill him?”

“Hey!” says Trevor, “I don’t like being used as the example here!”

Sypha ignores him. “Oh, for sure. You could probably kill him with less effort, though. I mean, there’s so much muscle between the outside of his chest and his heart, you know? It would probably be easier to just garotte him while he slept, or something.”

“Excuse me?” says Trevor.

Alucard ignores him. “Well, there you have it. Driving a stake through somebodies’ heart is a pretty reliable method of killing them regardless of whether or not they’re a vampire. Does that answer your question?”

“Huh,” says Sypha, thoughtfully, “You know, I guess it does. I want to have a look at some of those spells down in the library tomorrow, though. See what it is about you that’s setting some of them off and not others. Perhaps then I can disarm them for you?”

Alucard shrugs. “Sure. Be my guest. Now, if we’re quite done discussing how to kill me-”

“And me!” interjects Trevor.

Once more, Alucard ignores his protest completely. Asshole. “- then may I suggest we eat this stew before it gets too cold, and then once that’s done I can try to find you some rooms? There should be plenty of choice, I just need to locate some bedding.”

 

Sypha leans up onto the tips of her toes and kisses Alucard on the cheek. “That sounds delightful.”

Trevor shrugs. “Sure. I mean, I’m famished, so-”

Alucard fixes him with a steely glare. “That wasn’t an invitation for you, Belmont.”

“What?!”

“I am absolutely not letting you eat your dinner in your moth-eaten underpants. _Somebody_ around here has to maintain a sense of decorum. There are wardrobes in plenty of the rooms upstairs. Go and put some clothes on.”

“But-”

Alucard waves the stew spoon menacingly in Trevor’s direction. “I said _go_.”

 

And so, - with one last, longing look at the stew - Trevor goes.

 

Having to wear clothes for dinner! Pfft. Ridiculous.

 

Urgh.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ur kudos and comments feed and sustain me, thank u for all the love <3
> 
> also messy bun alucard being domestic is already A Thing in the fandom and I, for one, am STRONGLY in support of this content


	4. Chapter 4

It takes a while, but Trevor eventually manages to locate a shirt and trousers that at least approximately fit and, more importantly, aren’t covered in frills. What is it with vampires and frilly shirts? Whatever it is, Trevor wants no part in it. He makes a mental note to go and retrieve his wet clothes from where he dumped them behind the couch in the study as soon as possible; the thick cloth will take a while to dry even if he hangs it up by a fireplace, but _anything_ is preferable to flouncy shirts and tight leather trousers. Vampires! Ridiculous, the lot of them.

 

Dinner is held at the long rough-hewn wooden table in the kitchen, and Alucard apologises far more than necessary about the lack of a proper dining service and the necessity of eating somewhere other than the dining room. He briefly comments that it is ‘currently unfit for purpose’, which turns out to be something of an understatement, as Trevor and Sypha discover when they pass through it on the way to find bedrooms later in the night.

 

“Alucard,” says Sypha, shivering slightly as she takes in the sight of a blasted-out window and the steadily increasing snowfall that is now half-submerging the broken central table, “have you not had time to fix this up a bit?”

Alucard blinks. “Oh, uh… well. I’ve just been avoiding this bit of the house, really. Hmm. I hope that the snow doesn’t melt through into the rooms below, actually. I suppose I should probably do something about that, shouldn’t I?”

Trevor frowns. “Oh, it’ll melt through for sure, and it’s gonna do a number on your plasterwork. You should- hang on. Wait. Is that a body over there? Jesus Christ, Alucard, please tell me you haven’t just _left_ a bunch of vampire corpses all over your house.”

“Uh…” says Alucard, hurriedly ushering them both out of the dining room. “Look, I wasn’t expecting company, alright? I’ve been meaning to clear up, but I just…” he shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy to clear up the corpses in your fucking dining room?!”

Alucard looks a little pinched. “Well, yes, I suppose that when you put it like that it sounds bad but, honestly, this is such a big house and there are so many rooms and, well… a lot of stuff got broken. In the fight, yes, but also - I suspect - when Sypha moved the castle. It wasn’t really designed to be dragged around like that, after all. Not without the proper mechanisms being activated, anyway.” And with that, he closes the dining room door behind them and strides off down the corridor.

 

Sypha and Trevor follow in his wake, slightly apprehensively.

“You know,” whispers Sypha, looping her arm conspiratorially around Trevor’s, “I’m beginning to think that maybe we should have stayed to help him out in the first place.”

Trevor snorts. “No kidding. The guy is clearly losing it.”

Sypha smacks his arm. “Don’t be rude! He’s gone through a lot. We should… we should probably not have left him in in a house full of dead bodies – including, I assume, his dad’s – which is also possibly slightly falling apart and ALSO on top of a library full of books about how to kill people like him. You know?”

“… you’re not wrong.”

“I’m never wrong,” says Sypha, with a self-indulgent little smirk.

“Sure.”

“In all seriousness, though, let’s make sure to look after him while we’re here, yes?”

“By ‘look after him’ do you mean, ‘help him clear up the stinky bodies he’s left all over his ridiculously large and fancy house’?”

“Yes,” says Sypha. “And also help him fix that hole in the dining room wall-”

“Sure,” says Trevor.

“-and also be there for him emotionally.”

“Urgh. Really? Why are we doing this again?”

Sypha fixes him with a markedly cool gaze. “Because we like him.”

“No we don’t!”

“Yes we do.”

“… fine. But don’t tell him I said that.”

Sypha taps her nose, and winks. “Your secret is safe with me.”

 

They follow Alucard through a baffling sprawl of corridors and staircases, before he comes to a halt in front of an unremarkable-looking door halfway down a vaguely curving hallway. They must be in one of the bigger turrets, Trevor surmises.

“Here,” says Alucard, turning the handle, “There should be a trunk with clean sheets in it somewhere in here - and if I’m not very much mistaken, I think there’s a selection of sleepwear as well.”

“Pfft,” says Trevor, “as if I’m gonna fit into any of your pyjamas. Look at me!” He flexes. “Like, no offense. But compared to me, you’re kind of weedy.” He flexes again, to illustrate his point.

Alucard rolls his eyes. “There’s a wardrobe in here with sleepwear for unexpected guests, actually. Father insisted on it, in case of visitors finding themselves in need of spares. There’s quite a selection; I’m sure you’ll find something that will be able to contain your ridiculously oversized body. And really, it’s awfully bold of you to assume that I’d let you anywhere near _my_ pyjamas before you take an actual bath, Belmont.”

“Hey, I washed myself like a week ago! I’m perfectly clean.”

“No you aren’t,” says Sypha.

“Yes I am!”

“You are not,” says Alucard. “And you will take a bath tomorrow even if I have to throw you in myself and hold you down.”

Sypha claps her hands, clearly delighted. “Oooh, I’ll help!”

 

“Now,” says  Alucard, throwing open the doors on an ornate oak wardrobe and blithely ignoring Trevor’s incensed protests and Sypha’s increasingly unsubtle innuendos, “I think there ought to be something for you both in here. Have a look.”

He steps back from the wardrobe with a sweeping bow, and busies himself with the rather complex-looking lock on an antique chest on the far side of the room, frowning slightly to himself.

 

“Oooh!” says Sypha, ruffling through the nightgowns with a series of delighted coos. She pulls one out and holds it up to herself. “What about this one, Trevor? Or maybe-” she pulls another similarly frothy white confection from the wardrobe and holds it next to the other with a speculative expression. “What do you think?”

“Uh… that they both look kind of the same?”

Sypha rolls her eyes. “That’s not the point. You’re supposed to tell me which one I would look prettiest in.”

“You’d look pretty in both. You look pretty even when you’re dressed as a boy, Sypha, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Trevor Belmont!” exclaims Sypha, “You are partaking in shameless flattery!”

“I’m not-”

“It’s absolutely working, by the way,” says Sypha, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

Trevor can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. God, Sypha can be so… just. So _much_ , sometimes. Eventually he realises that he’s just been staring at her and not saying anything for way too long, so he splutters out a slightly disjointed, “Uh, it’s not flattery, I just… think you’re… not ugly. Or whatever.” Oh yes. Yep, definitely saved that situation there, Trevor.

 

“Well,” says Sypha, a sparkle in her eye, “I think you’re not ugly too. Now, go find yourself something to wear.” She pushes him toward the wardrobe and turns toward Alucard with the two nightdresses held aloft. “Alucard, darling, which one of these do you think…”

 

Trevor turns his attention to the wardrobe. A solid two-thirds of the garments are nightdresses, which narrows his choice down to… a few dozen white shirts. He rummages through the hangers with a sinking feeling in his chest. Everything is so… flouncy. There’s a lot of lace. Billowing sleeves and ruffled cuffs. Open-chested shirts that clearly aren’t designed to ever be closed. He frowns. This is absurd. Fucking vampires. Also, everything in the entire wardrobe is white. What’s wrong with some good old brown shirts? They hide the stains so much better.

“Do you not have any normal pyjamas in your house, Tepes?” asks Trevor, turning away from the wardrobe and throwing up his hands in despair.

Alucard looks up from the trunk he’s crouched in front of. “Certainly not. For goodness’ sake, you’re in a castle built by vampires, what were you expecting? The nightwear options are as follows; long white nightgowns with improbable cleavages, or billowing lacy nightshirts, also mostly in white.” He strokes his chin, thoughtful. “I suppose you might find something in a slightly more champagne shade if you look carefully.”

“Seriously?” says Trevor. “Like… seriously?!”

Alucard nods haughtily. “It’s _traditional_ , Belmont. You can borrow a nightgown, or you can borrow a nightshirt; those are your options. If you have a problem with what’s being offered to you, then perhaps you should have thought to bring your own pyjamas.”

“I don’t really have any pyjamas of my own.”

“What?”

Trevor shrugs. “Well, normally I just sleep in my clothes.”

Alucard pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are a disgusting creature. I despise you. You don’t wash, you drink constantly, and now I find out that you don’t even own sleepwear! I bet you don’t even have a moisturising regime, do you?”

“A what?”

“It’s… well, you know, after you wash your face in the morning and at night-”

“Why would I wash my face?”

 

It takes Trevor a moment to realise that the high-pitched screaming noise that follows this statement is coming from Alucard. “You,” he says, after appearing to collect himself for a moment, “are a monster, Belmont. You know that, right?”

Trevor snorts. “That’s rich coming from you!”

Alucard stands, drawing himself up to his full height and dusting an invisible speck of dust off the front of his shirt. “I may be half vampire, Trevor, but at least I know what fucking toner water is!”

“Toner what?” says Trevor, turning to Sypha in a vague appeal for support.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. Like, witch hazel and stuff. You know.”

“I certainly don’t,” says Trevor, affronted. “I have literally no idea what the fuck either of you is on about.”

 

“Okay,” says Alucard, after taking several deep breaths, “okay, this is fine. This is… fine. Tomorrow, mark my words, I am going to throw you into a bath and scrub you _raw_. And then, I’m going to explain moisturiser and haircuts to you. But for now, let’s just… let’s just find you both somewhere to sleep, and you can… just… wear what you’re already in, for all I care. At least it’s clean. I’ll find something better for you tomorrow.”

“Do I get a choice in this?” asks Trevor.

“No,” says Alucard.

“Absolutely not,” says Sypha. “I want to watch that go down.” Trevor pouts at her, hoping for sympathy, but Sypha’s attention has already turned to Alucard. “So, where are our rooms? Oooh, are they all really fancy? Are there four-poster beds?”

 

Alucard smiles indulgently. “In some of the guest rooms, yes. Options are a bit limited by, uh, you know… the fact that there are corpses in some of the rooms. Um. Still, there should be ample choice.”

“And what about you?” asks Sypha, tucking the nightdress she seems to have chosen under her arm as she heads toward the door, “Where are you sleeping? Can I be next door? I don’t want to get lost in this place, after all.”

Alucard hesitates. “I… it’s probably best you don’t.”

Sypha narrows her eyes. “Why not?”

“I’m calling it now,” says Trevor, “his room is full of humans he’s kidnapped to drain of their blood and he doesn’t want us to hear their desperate cries for help.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Sypha.

Alucard rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just that I’ve been sleeping… poorly.”

“So?” says Sypha.

“I have… nightmares,” says Alucard, avoiding eye contact and fiddling listlessly at the hem of his sleeve. “I get a little… loud. Screaming, shouting, sleepwalking on occasion. So. It’s probably better to stay away if you want an undisturbed nights’ sleep.”

 

“Alucard!” scolds Sypha, setting her jaw into a line of grim determination, “if you think that’s going to make me just LEAVE you on your OWN, you have another thing coming! I’ll stay with you.”

“What?” says Alucard.

“Oh, hang on-” begins Trevor.

Sypha puts her hands on her hips and stares them both down. “If Alucard is having nightmares, then he should have somebody to keep him company.”

“Absolutely not,” says Trevor, “that’s… no. No way. That’s not happening.”

“And why should I give a shit what you think, Trevor?” says Sypha, scowling furiously up at him.

“You- well- I… I mean, Alucard hasn’t even said if he’d be alright with it, in fairness. And it’s improper.”

“I wouldn’t mind company,” says Alucard, as Sypha sputters,

“Improper?! Really, that’s your objection?”

 

Faced with the full force of Sypha’s wrath, Trevor takes a nervous step backwards. “No! I mean, yes, but also- well, what if he sleep-bites? I don’t know!”

“If you are concerned for Sypha’s safety, you’re more than welcome to join us,” says Alucard, tartly. “You can stand guard, if that makes you happy. If not… well, it’s a pretty big bed. I’m sure everyone will fit.”

For reasons he can’t entirely understand, Trevor’s mouth goes very dry. “Oh, well… yeah. That’s fine. I guess. I’m sleeping in the middle, though.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow.

“To protect Sypha!” says Trevor.

“Of course,” says Alucard, but he doesn’t look especially convinced.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alucard moods: have a breakdown... but make it sexy  
> honestly what an icon, we stan, etc etc etc. 
> 
> this chapter is a bit longer than the others! maybe i'll actually finish nano on time!! 
> 
> also huge huge thanks to all the lovely commenters and to everyone who's left kudos, u guys are delightful and charming and i love u :*


	5. Chapter 5

Trevor would never admit as much aloud, but it’s an undeniable fact that he hasn’t actually had all that much experience in sharing a bed. Mind you, over the past few years he hasn’t had many experiences in _beds_ full stop, having discovered that trees provide significantly cheaper (and only arguably less comfortable) sleeping arrangements than the cost of a bed at even the most dubious tavern. If pressed, Trevor would likely make the following observation; Alucard’s bed is very different to a tree.

The room itself spacious, and fancy in a kind of detached way which suggests that it was designed as a guest room, rather than a room for the young master of the house. The bed itself is absurd -although maybe years of sleeping in doorways and under bushes have tainted Trevor’s ability to judge what a normal bed should look like. Surely, though, his judgement hasn’t been affected all that much? Either way, he’s pretty sure that the average bed couldn’t comfortably fit three people abreast, that’s for sure. Or have stupid flouncy curtains around it. Or have this many fucking pillows. There are an obscene amount of pillows. He throws a few on the floor, and Alucard scowls at him.

 

“Must you fling my bedding around like some kind of overgrown ape, Belmont?” he asks, sliding delicately under the covers as Trevor lobs a final pillow to the far side of the room.

“Can’t have too many pillows. Makes a man soft.”

“I see,” says Alucard, who appears to be in the process of braiding his hair over one shoulder, “it all makes sense now. You are an idiot.”

“Shut up. You have too many pillows.”

“I need the neck support. And I like to read in bed; having sufficient pillows to prop myself up is important.”

“Aren’t you supposed to sleep in a coffin, anyway?”

“I have done, at times; you found me in one, after all. But they aren’t really designed for it. Terrible lack of padding. And I get a little claustrophobic in the smaller ones.”

“You get- huh. Yeah, I guess they’re uh, not really designed to have... alive people in.”

“No,” says Alucard, with a yawn that shows just a little too much fang to be reasonably called cute, “Not really.”

Sypha pads into the room and glances at the array of pillows spread across the floor. “Did you guys have a pillow fight without me?” She sounds genuinely disappointed by the idea.

 

“No,” says Alucard, picking up a book and a pair of slim-framed glasses from the nightstand next to him, “Belmont just felt the need to assert his rampant masculinity by throwing my furnishings all over the floor, because he is-” Then he looks up at Sypha, and whatever the next word in his sentence was going to be, it comes out sounding something like “-skdkdhd?!!”

 

Trevor would normally laugh at that, but in all honesty he’s in firm agreement with the sentiment behind the ridiculous squeaking noise Alucard makes; Sypha looks incredible. The nightdress is... well. Very different to the shapeless Speaker robes she normally wears, that’s for sure. There’s a lot of lacy bits. And flounces. And. Uh. Cleavage. That’s probably the main thing; there is - and this cannot be stressed enough - a _lot_ of cleavage.

 

Sypha laughs, and twirls round slowly a few times in the centre of the room. “Your faces! Do you like it?”

 

Alucard makes another noise like an oversized duck being strangled with a sock. Trevor reaches out and gives his hand an encouraging squeeze. Not everyone has the class and grace of a Belmont when faced with a beautiful woman in a tightly-fitted nightgown, after all.

 

“You- dress. Nice.” Trevor manages to grind out, and if parts of it are an octave higher than normal, well, he’s sure Sypha won’t notice. He even manages to keep his eyes almost on her face for most of the sentence. It might not be his smoothest moment ever, but it’s certainly a markedly better showing than Alucard, who has managed to go the most glorious shade of pink. Maybe his vampiric heritage means a he’s got a genetic tendency to respond like that to women in dramatic white nightgowns? Is that a thing? Either way, he looks ridiculous. Across the room, Sypha cackles, and twirls around again, before springing across the floor and leaping onto the bed with an audible thud. She flops herself down so that she’s lying over Trevor and halfway onto Alucard, and wiggles contentedly. Trevor tries very hard to think about cold water and sour mead and not about Sypha being practically in his lap. It is... mostly effective.

 

Sypha sighs contentedly. “Oh, it’s so nice to dress up all pretty! I never dress up. I mean, that’s mostly just common sense because I get stains on absolutely everything, you know? And I like wearing comfy clothes, anyway. But it’s nice to be pretty sometimes.”

“Ah,” says Alucard, who seems to have at least somewhat recovered his composure and is now running a gentle hand through Sypha’s hair, “now _that_ I understand. Unlike Belmont.”

“Hey!” says Trevor, “I can be pretty!”

Sypha and Alucard both fix him with deeply unimpressed stares. “I am yet to see any convincing evidence of this statement,” says Alucard, with a little smirk.

“Yeah, and you _stink_ , Trevor,” says Sypha, kissing his forehead and making a dramatic show of wrinkling up her nose, “but I suppose you’re sort of… ruggedly handsome.”

“You’re not wrong,” says Alucard, his hand still carding gently through Sypha’s hair, “but ruggedly handsome isn’t pretty. It doesn’t matter, in any case, because you and I are easily pretty enough for three, aren’t we, my dear?”

 Sypha giggles, leaning in toward Alucard so that their noses are almost touching and resting her hand fondly on his cheek. “Oh, plenty pretty enough. My _dear_.”

 

At which Trevor grasps Sypha firmly by the shoulders and heaves her over onto the far side of the bed.

“Hey!” she squeaks.

“Oh for god’s sake,” says Alucard. “Really, Belmont?

“I’m maintaining propriety,” says Trevor, with an expression of great dignity.

Sypha rolls over and curls up next to Trevor. “What exactly,” she asks, with that particular gleam in her eye that Trevor is learning to be very wary of, “is _proper_ about all of us sharing a bed in the first place?”

“Uh,” says Trevor, feeling suddenly uncomfortably warm, “well… it’s… uh…” He turns to Alucard, hoping against hope for some sort of moral support.

Alucard smiles lazily, showing his fangs. “Why, Sypha, I can’t think of anything proper about this situation at all. How odd.”

“You-” Trevor shakes his head, feeling himself flush as Sypha stifles a laugh in the back of his neck. “Alright, see, this is why I’m here. You’re both being-”

“What?” asks Alucard. Is it Trevor’s imagination, or is he somehow closer than he was before?

“What?” says Sypha, breath warm against the back of Trevor’s neck. He can almost feel the smile in her voice.

 

Trevor takes a deep, steadying breath. He briefly contemplates the fact that, perhaps, he shouldn’t have insisted on following Alucard and Sypha to bed, and that maybe he ought to have just left his friends to do… whatever it is that they would obviously be doing if he wasn’t here. Which. Hmm. His mind very helpfully supplies several possibilities. All of them are significantly more interesting than they have any right to be, given that _Alucard_ is involved. Mind you, Trevor has to admit that the man isn’t bad looking, even if he is stupid stuck-up snob, and a vampire to boot. He has nice eyes. And nice legs. And nice hips. And-

“Trevor?” says Alucard, waving a hand in front of his face with a stupid smug little smirk, “Hello, anything going on in there?”

Trevor realises that he’s possibly been silently thinking about Alucard’s hips for longer than is entirely acceptable. “Uh,” he says, “Yeah, I- you’re both being very silly. And I’m here to keep everything above-board and proper. Alright?”

Alucard raises an eyebrow. “You are?”

“Look, it’s like… I’m the sword,” says Trevor, “You know?”

 

There’s a long, distinctly baffled pause. “I can’t say I exactly follow your line of thought,” says Alucard.

Trevor clears his throat, embarrassed. “You know, like in the Thousand and One Nights.”

“The fairy stories?” says Sypha.

“Exactly. And if people had to share a bed - whenever there was a, you know, a noble knight or a Prince or something-”

“That’s me,” says Sypha, “I want to be the handsome Prince!”

“- and a beautiful virginal Princess-”

“Ah, that’s Alucard.”

Alucard rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Sypha.”

Trevor ploughs on, ignoring them both. “- and they had to share a bed, right, they would- they’d put a sword between them. So there was no funny business. And that’s me! I’m the sword.”

 

There’s a moment of silence, and then Alucard throws his head back and laughs. “You really are a prize idiot, aren’t you?”

“What?!” says Trevor, a little defensively, “I’m not!”

“You’re saying that you’re a _sword_?!”

“It’s a metaphor!” exclaims Trevor, “And I referenced a classic text respected and loved around the world! How is that being an idiot? It’s probably the smartest thing I’ve done all week.”

“All month,” says Sypha.

“All year, perhaps,” says Alucard. “Yes, maybe it is. You’re still an idiot, though, Belmont.”

“Why?”

Alucard fixes him with a long, inscrutable stare, the vaguest hint of a smile playing over his lips. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll work it out eventually.”

“But-”

“Are swords normally this talkative?”

“That’s not what I meant by- look, it’s a metaphor, alright? Or… or maybe it’s a simile. I can never remember the difference.”

Alucard touches Trevor’s cheek, just briefly, his hand cool, and shakes his head. “Go to sleep, Belmont.” Then he reaches out and takes Sypha’s hand in his, smiling fondly. “Good night, Sypha.”

She tugs him closer, and plants a delicate kiss on his cheek. “Goodnight, Alucard.”

“Oy!” says Trevor, and Sypha laughs.

“Good night to you too, Mr Sword,” she says, still smiling.

“That’s not-”

At which point she kisses his cheek, too, which does a marvellous job of shutting him up.

 

Alucard reaches over and snuffs out the candle at the side of the bed. After what can’t be more than a minute’s silence, Sypha whispers, “Hey, Trevor, are you still awake?”

“Yes? Of course I am, we were just talking, I- who falls asleep that fast?”

“I don’t know! I was just checking.”

“… right.”

 

There’s another long pause, and then Sypha whispers, “Hey, Trevor?”

Alucard give a long-suffering sigh.

“What?” whispers Trevor.

“So, if you’re a sword…”

“Yeah?”

“Does that mean you’re… long and hard?”

 

There’s a muffled thud and a shriek as Alucard pelts a pillow with pin-point accuracy at Sypha’s head.

“Hey, no fair! I was just _asking-_ ” she begins. Another pillow comes hurtling toward her, but this time she’s prepared and ducks aside, snickering.

“How come you get to throw pillows?” whines Trevor. “I threw pillows earlier and you were being a complete dick about it, how come-”

“They’re my pillows!” says Alucard; “It’s my bed!”

“So?”

“I can throw you out and I will, I swear to god, Belmont…”

“No you can’t, I’m here as a- as a bastion of propriety and chastity!” says Trevor, puffing his chest out slightly. The effect is lost mostly because he’s under the covers and it’s dark as shit, but he does it anyway. It’s the thought that counts.

“Oh, sure,” says Alucard, in a tone that veritably drips sarcasm, “yes, you’re maintaining propriety by sharing a bed with two people and insisting that you’re _actually_ there to be the metaphorical phallic object lying between them-”

“That’s- you’re misrepresenting what I said!”

“I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am n- arGH!” says Alucard, as another pillow comes hurtling over Trevor to smack him dead in the chest. “Hey, what was that for?”

 

Before Sypha can answer, there’s a loud chime. One of the clocks somewhere in the castle striking midnight. The chimes are followed by a phenomenal crash, and a piercing, unearthly scream that seems to resonate from somewhere below, rattling the floorboards.

Trevor feels Sypha grab his arm in the darkness, her voice suddenly tense. “What was that?” she whispers, the slightest tremor in her voice.

There’s a hiss and a flare of light as Alucard strikes a match and re-lights the candle. His eyes are wide, and he looks almost feverish. “You heard that too?”

Sypha nods.

“Yeah,” says Trevor, “I mean, that was pretty hard to miss, right?”

“Ah,” says Alucard, looking – if possible – even paler than normal, “In which case, perhaps not all of my nightmares have been quite as _imaginary_ as I had assumed.”

“Oh _shit_ ,” says Trevor.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha i drew u in with my ridiculous fluff and now im going to spring upon you... *drumroll* a PLOT
> 
> dont worry it won't get in the way of Further Ot3 Shenanigans, I promise. but it may make the title make a bit more sense! possibly.
> 
> anyway have fun stay funky remember to drink plenty of water, get good sleep, and to moisturise ur face, neck, and hands every day twice a day. also keep leaving comments and kudos, every interaction increases the strength of my Arcane Powers (true story)


	6. Chapter 6

“So, at what point were you planning on telling us that you have a fucking _ghost_ in your spooky vampire castle?” grumbles Trevor, as the trio scurry downstairs.

 

“Firstly,” says Alucard - who has somehow found time not only to grab his sword but also to throw the most ridiculous silky red robe over his nightshirt, and despite all this he’s still slightly ahead of Trevor on the stairs - “I have no idea what that ominous shrieking is, although I suppose ‘ghost’ is as good a guess as any. And secondly, I didn’t mention it because I didn’t realise it was... real. Thirdly-”

“Sounds plenty real to me,” grumbles Trevor, as another terrible scream echoes up from below.

“I- yes,” says Alucard, “I know, I know, I just... everything has been so fraught, lately. I keep having terrible nightmares. And I see things that-” he cuts himself off, and shakes his head. “I’ve been under a lot of stress, you know? I wasn’t entirely sure if the noises were real, or dreams, or if-” he shakes his head again, more firmly this time. “It doesn’t matter. Like I say. Stress.”

 

Trevor catches Alucard’s arm as they reach the next landing, and pulls him to a halt. Or, at least, Alucard allows himself to be halted, turning to Trevor with an expression of mild bemusement and not a little annoyance.

“What is it, Belmont?”

“Alright,” says Trevor, “now is probably not the time, but, uh... Look, I know it was shitty. Leaving you here.”

Alucard shrugs, averting his gaze; “I wouldn’t have been all that fit for company.”

“Still,” says Trevor - thoroughly out of his comfort zone but determined to plough on regardless - “it was- look, I know what it’s like. Losing people. And also being alone. It’s shit. It’s all shit. It’s all so stupid and shitty and pointless and... I don’t know. I think you’re supposed to talk about it? I mean, I don’t really do that, myself. I mostly just... drink about it. But if you ever want to, uh, chat, or something...” He grasps Alucard’s shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting manner. “Or we can just drink. Can you drink beer? Or is it just blood? I mean, not that it-”

Alucard shrugs Trevor’s hand away, still not meeting his eyes. “You’re right,” he says, rather tightly; “it’s not the time.”

 

“Oy!” yells Sypha, finally appearing at the top of the staircase the boys have just descended, “hey, wait up, I can’t go anywhere fast in this stupid- fucking- bitchshitfuck-” She hobbles down the first few steps, swearing like a sailor and clearly hampered in her descent by the unfamiliar tightness of her floor length nightgown. “Fuck!” she splutters, almost tripping over the hem; “I change my mind! Dressing pretty is the worst! I need my legs back!”

 

“Lift it up,” suggests Alucard, already halfway back up the stairs with his hand outstretched, all gentlemanly courtesy and chivalry and tender concern.

“Oh, wouldn’t you like that,” says Sypha, rolling her eyes.

Alucard stops in his tracks, a blush playing high across his cheekbones. “That’s- you know that’s not what I meant.”

She winks. “I know, I know. But I need my arms free in case I have to do any casting, so...” she reaches down and hitches the hem of the dress up, and in one smooth movement tears the seam on one side all the way up to the top of her thigh with a satisfyingly loud _rrrrrip_. She inspects her handiwork with a self-satisfied little smirk. “There,” she says, “much better!” And then she bounds down the rest of the staircase, taking the steps two at a time.

 

“Lord have mercy,” mutters Alucard, turning on his heel to follow her as she leaps past him, legs bared, eyes alight, and with the skirts of her nightgown now flowing out behind her and fluttering down the steps in her wake. Trevor certainly doesn’t disagree with the sentiment; she looks beautiful in a wild sort of way, like the sea does when the waves are far too rough to swim.

“Alright,” she says, clapping her hands together as she catches up to Trevor, “have you two worked out where the noise is coming from?”

Trevor shakes his head.

Sypha hums, thoughtfully. “Perhaps the dining room? That’s below us, and something could easily have got in through the broken window... Didn’t you say there were other damaged rooms, though, Alucard? Perhaps there are other points of entry which-”

“It’s not the dining room,” says Alucard, his jaw tight.

“You know where in the house it is?” asks Sypha. “Do you have any idea what sort of thing-”

“It’s not _in_ the house,” snaps Alucard, coming to an abrupt halt, “it’s in Belmont’s fucking library.”

 

“Ah,” says Sypha.

“Oh dear,” says Trevor.

Alucard rounds on him. “‘Oh dear’ is about fucking right, yes. I mean, I personally thought that the children’s skulls that your ancestors were displaying so proudly down there were bad enough; the vampire skulls as trophies in general I found distasteful, but _children_? Monster or not, that seems...” he shakes his head, an expression of sheer disbelief panted across his delicate features. “And then there were the traps, too - you know, just to remind me that most of the people who built that place would probably kill me on sight if given the chance. And now this!” He says, waving a hand furiously at the floor as another mournful howl cuts through the air.

“... sorry,” says Trevor.

Alucard pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes, much good that does.”

“It’s not Trevor’s fault that-” begins Sypha.

“I know,” says Alucard, deflating slightly. “I know. I just... my house is currently on top of a pit which I think is trying to kill me. You know?”

Sypha pats his shoulder soothingly, “I know. Let’s just go beat up whatever it is that’s making all this noise, hmm? That’ll make you feel better.”

Alucard nods glumly. “I guess so.”

 

“Well, if we’re going to go beat something up, I need to go get Vampire Killer,” says Trevor. “Also, we should probably work out what it is we’re going to fight. You’ve seen it, Alucard?”

Alucard raises an eyebrow. “You don’t have your whip with you? I thought you were always hyper-prepared and vaguely paranoid – didn’t you tell me that you normally slept with the damn thing under your pillow?”

“In fairness,” says Trevor, somewhat defensively, “I don’t normally _have_ a pillow. I normally just sleep in my clothes, and I keep my whip on my belt, so…”

“You’re a heathen,” says Alucard, companionably.

“Thanks,” says Trevor.

“Where did you leave it?” asks Sypha.

“In the study, with the rest of my clothes. I swear, I haven’t forgotten to bring it with me in _years_ , I just… I don’t know, I guess I figured I didn’t need it with you guys around.”

 

“Aww,” says Sypha, as they set off again, headed for the study, “because we’re so strong, and clever, and beautiful? And you know we will always protect you?”

“Pretty much,” shrugs Trevor. “Alucard’s kind of ugly, though.”

Alucard flips him off without breaking his stride.

Trevor laughs. “Yeah, fuck you too.”

“He doesn’t mean it, Alucard,” says Sypha, “He’s only jealous because you are so beautiful and elegant and he’s just a big mean stinky man who smells bad.”

“I know,” says Alucard, smugly.

“Oy!” says Trevor.

 

It takes an absurd amount of time to get to the study. Trevor keeps forgetting how ridiculously huge Alucard’s house is. Of course, as a child, Trevor himself had grown up in a house of fairly stately proportions, but the castle takes it to another fucking level. It’s gargantuan and labyrinthine and frankly, whoever built it was clearly completely insane. The layout is baroque beyond any sense of reason, and the architecture seems to change completely randomly from room to room, corridor to corridor. Trevor has no idea how Alucard doesn’t get lost in this place.

 

When they do eventually reach the study, Sypha grabs an empty glass from the desk and puts it to the floor, while Alucard pulls a couple of slightly moth-eaten coats from the dresser in the corner.

“We’ll need to go outside to reach the library,” he explains, “so you should probably wear these. There are some shoes over here, too.”

Sypha throws on some shoes and tugs one of the coats over her nightgown, then goes to rests her ear against the glass on the floor with a thoughtful expression as muffled screaming echoes up from below.

“You know, whatever the thing down there is, it doesn’t seem to have moved much,” observes Sypha, listening carefully for further ominous wails as Trevor pulls a coat on and then folds himself over the back of the couch to start scrabbling around in the damp pile of his clothes and locate Vampire Killer.

“No,” says Alucard, “I’m not entirely sure it _can_ move all that much. It certainly seems to be contained in the library, for now at least.”

“Have you seen it?”

He shakes his head slowly. “Not exactly. The first night I heard noises - it was a week or so ago, I believe - I naturally went down to have a look, and didn’t find anything amiss, just a... a strange feeling. Eyes on the back of the neck. You know? Shadows that seemed to move in the corners of the room, only as soon as I took a closer look there was nothing there. I didn’t stay long. I’ve only just covered the entrance to the library... it’s all a little makeshift, and I was rather worried that the door would get snowed shut.”

“And you haven’t been down again?”

“Oh, I went down again. The noise had got louder over the next few nights after the first. I went down to check what was happening the night before last, and I was struck by the most terrible sense of... impending doom, I suppose. Kept thinking I could see movement. Something following me, just outside the pool of light from my candle I had brought with me. And then I, uh...” He tails off, looking a little embarrassed.

“What?” Says Sypha.

“The candle blew out. I panicked. Then I ran into a wall. I suppose I must have passed out, because when I woke up it was nearly dawn.”

Trevor snorts.

“Go back to finding your whip, idiot,” says Alucard, narrowing his eyes. “And there had better not be a pile of soaking wet furs behind that couch when I check back there in the morning. Go and hang your dirty clothes up somewhere, for god’s sake.”

 

“So that was the last time you went down there?” asks Sypha, frowning slightly.

“No, not at all; I’ve been down since. Just not at night.”

“So the noise only happens at night?”

He nods. “I mean, you can see why I assumed it was all in my mind. The place is fine during the day, and it’s not as though I’ve actually _found_ anything down there, even when I’ve been down at night. Just a bad feeling. I mean, I could perfectly well have been imagining the noise, or dreaming it, or... who knows?”

Sypha taps her chin thoughtfully. “Interesting. Maybe it actually is a ghost. That would be a shame.”

“How so?”

“Well, you can’t really beat a ghost up, can you? They’re all... what’s the word...”

“Incorporeal?” suggests Alucard.

“Yeah,” says Sypha, brightly, “that’s actually the exact word I would have been looking for if I was a huge nerd.”

 

“Found it!” Trevor stands up, holding Vampire Killer aloft with an expression of deep satisfaction.

“Took you long enough,” says Sypha, rolling her eyes as he brings the whip down and plants a delighted kiss on the handle.

“Ah, darling,” he says, cradling the whip tenderly to his chest, “I missed you so much...”

“Is it entirely normal to feel that way about a weapon?” asks Alucard. “You are a very strange person.”

Trevor strokes the whip’s handle comfortingly. “Don’t listen to the nasty man,” he coos, “he’s just jealous of you.”

“No I’m not,” Alucard grumbles, stalking over to the door with his nose in the air, “My sword is cooler, anyway.”

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

 

Sypha rolls her eyes. “Right, shall we all go investigate the library, then? Or do you two just want to stay here and compare weapon sizes?”

Alucard sniffs haughtily. “That’s not what we’re doing, Sypha. We’re above that.”

“Mine’s longer!” says Trevor, cracking his whip and wiggling his eyebrows at Sypha.

Alucard sighs. “Sorry, correction; _I_ am above that. Belmont clearly is not.”

“He just knows he’ll lose the argument,” says Trevor, cheerfully patting Alucard’s shoulder with his free hand. “Isn’t that right? You know when to admit defeat, huh?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not getting dragged into your stupid childish-”

“You’re cranky because you’ve got a short sword, huh?”

“It’s not- it’s not a short sword.”

Trevor raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Because, I’m just saying, from what I can see, it looks a little bit like a short sword, so…”

 

Alucard fixes him with a glare of incomparable coolness. “Look, if you want to see my dick, Belmont, you need only ask. I’m not getting dragged into any more of your weird metaphors about swords.”

“You- wait, what?” says Trevor, as Alucard sweeps past him and back out into the corridor, chuckling faintly to himself. Sypha snickers at him as he trails after Alucard, calling out, “No, hang on, I wasn’t talking about your dick! I wasn’t talking about your dick!”

“Yes you were,” says Alucard, casting a haughty glance over his shoulder. “You were, and it was very stupid. Just like you.”

Trevor growls. “I wasn’t- Sypha, tell him I wasn’t talking about his dick.”

She gives him a Look with a capital L. “You kind of were, though.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed,” she says, levelly. “After all, I’m sure it’s a very nice dick. I mean, look at him. He just has to have a nice dick. It would be cruel for somebody so handsome _not_ to. You know?”

Trevor contemplates this, briefly. He wants to argue, but in all honesty he has to admit that Sypha’s logic is pretty damn convincing. “Alright,” he sighs, “fair point. You’re… probably right, I guess. But I still wasn’t talking about it!”

“You are now, though,” says Sypha, looking distinctly smug.

“Yeah, well so are _you_ , so-”

 

“Can we PLEASE,” says Alucard, the back of his reddening visibly as he throws open the doors to the grand entrance hall, “stop talking about my dick?”

 

Sypha and Trevor both stifle giggles as he glances over his shoulder to glare at them.

“You’re not funny,” Alucard says, sternly.

“We are a _little_ bit, though,” says Sypha.

Trevor nods. “We’re pretty hilarious.”

“I hate you both,” says Alucard, flatly, as they make their way toward the front doors. “Now, if you’re quite finished-”

Sypha raises her hand, trying to smother a grin. “Actually, before we change topics, I do just have one question about-”

 

But (to Trevor’s eternal dismay) whatever detail of Alucard’s anatomy she was planning to ask about, she never gets a chance to finish the question, because halfway through her sentence, Alucard opens one of the enormous double doors at the front of the castle, and is promptly buried in a snowdrift of frankly ungodly proportions.

 

“Shit!” says Trevor, as Sypha squeaks in alarm.

There’s a moment of silence before Alucard comes hurtling up out of the snow, and stumbles back from the doors. “Ah,” he says, blinking snow out of his eyelashes, “It seems that perhaps we might be a little bit, uh… snowed in. I’m not sure we’ll make it as far as the library in that.”

“No kidding,” says Trevor, gaping at the snow that’s piled in through the open door. It must be seven or eight foot deep in places. What the hell? It was barely more than knee-high when he and Sypha had arrived.

“How did that happen so fast?” says Sypha, and for the first time she looks a little nervous. “We’ve only been here a few hours, I wouldn’t think it was possible for so much snow to fall… unless…”

“What?” says Trevor, shivering slightly as another garbled shriek echoes through the moonless night.

“Unless there’s something magical going on,” she says, biting her lip.

“Perhaps,” says Alucard, looking concerned. “Although I suppose it could just be a freak weather event. It’s not impossible that there is a rational explanation for this.”

 

At which point, two things happen. Firstly, the clocks in the castle begin to strike one. And secondly, as abruptly as it started, the wailing stops. There is a moment of utter snow-soft silence; even the blizzard outside seems to die down a little.

 

“Ah,” says Alucard, staring out of the doorway into the night. “Yeah, ok, that seems like…”

“Magical fuckery?” suggests Trevor.

Alucard nods solemnly. “Magical fuckery. _Exactly_.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! thank you all once more for your charming comments. every one of them makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I feel like it really makes my day to know that folks out there actually enjoy the ridiculous nonsense I'm churning out!!
> 
> also, on a sort of admin note - i've upped the rating slightly, just because i felt like the extended discussion of Alucard's dick and also the continued foul-mouthedness of every single character probably warrants something slightly above 'teen'. it's funny because when i was a teen myself I ignored ratings at all times, but now I'm a little older I feel the need to Protect The Sensitive Eyes Of The Youth. lol. but 'mature' is, I'm pretty sure, as high as the rating is gonna go; I know my strengths and highly detailed smut Aint It.


	7. Chapter 7

Once the snow has been mostly shovelled or melted out of the entrance hall and the door has been wedged closed once more, it’s nearly two in the morning, and by mutual agreement the trio traipse back to bed and pass the fuck out. The skin-crawling wailing having abated, it seems like a reasonable enough course of action to actually get some sleep before dealing with… whatever the hell is going on in the library.

 

They eat breakfast in the kitchen the next morning, in varying states of disarray. That is to say, Alucard is bright-eyed and freshly dressed, Trevor is begrudgingly sentient and only mostly awake, and Sypha is alternating between rapid chatter and almost falling asleep in her porridge.

“So, we should probably work on clearing a path to the library as a priority this morning,” says Trevor, gently propping Sypha against his shoulder as her head lolls toward the table again, “and then look into what we can do about-”

“Ah!” says Sypha, head snapping up abruptly, “Oooh, Trevor, I was right about to fall asleep again, there. You mustn’t let me! What if I dribble on your shirt?”

Trevor shrugs. “I feel like my shirt has seen worse.”

“It’s not _your_ shirt,” says Alucard, taking another sip of tea, “it’s mine. You’re just borrowing it.”

“Well, there you go, Sypha. Dribble away. It’s not even my shirt, it’s Alucard’s, so-”

“No! No dribbling on my possessions. That goes for both of you.”

“You would deserve it,” says Sypha, with an exaggerated pout, “for making us get up to eat breakfast. Why not have breakfast in bed, if your bed is so nice?”

“Agreed!” says Trevor. “It’s criminal to have a bed that posh and not eat in it.”

“See,” says Sypha, “it’s two against one. We should have breakfast in bed tomorrow.”

Alucard rolls his eyes. “Oh, sure, because I desperately want crumbs all over my sheets.”

“You already let Trevor in there!”

“And?”

“He is much dirtier than crumbs.”

 

Alucard laughs, standing up from the table and brushing his shirt down. “You’re not wrong. Talking of which, I think we agreed something about a bath today, didn’t we?”

Trevor narrows his eyes. “I didn’t agree to anything.”

“I did, though,” says Sypha.

“That’s definitely not the same as me agreeing.”

 She rests her chin in her hands and gazes up at Trevor, wide-eyed. “Oh, please, pleeeease let us put you in a bath. Alucard has all kinds of lovely soaps and bath oils and fancy towels, you’ll like it, I promise.”

“I’ve never liked being clean in my damn life,” grumbles Trevor. “It imbalances my humours.”

Sypha pouts. “But please? For me?”

“I- oh you’ve gotta stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” she says, blinking innocently up at him.

“Doing- aw, you know I can’t say no to that face. It’s not fair.”

Sypha grins, and Trevor feels the same emotion that he imagines mice feel when a cat has them under its paw. Only probably a bit different, actually, because the part of his brain that isn’t shitting itself about being cornered is vaguely hoping that he might get a kiss.

“So you’ll do it?” says Sypha, jerking him out of his reverie.

“I- well, yeah, but-”

At which she grabs him by the shoulders and plants a kiss on his forehead, and then another on the tip of his nose. For a second – and Trevor is certain that this actually happens, it can’t just be in his head – she eyes his mouth and he thinks that maybe…

 

But instead she pulls back with an airy little laugh, and turns to Alucard. “See? Told you I could make him.”

Alucard looks genuinely impressed, and slow claps for a few seconds while Sypha stands and gives a ridiculously flouncy bow.

“Thank you, thank you,” she says, as he takes her hand in his and kisses it delicately.

“That was masterful,” says Alucard, shaking his head in wonderment, “I mean, really quite impressive – which is saying something, coming from me; I grew up among vampires, after all, who are quite notorious for their power over mortal men.”

She shrugs modestly. “Ah, well, Trevor isn’t so hard to manipulate, after all.”

“You think? I’ve always found him to be incredibly stubborn, myself.”

“Then perhaps you have been going about it wrong.”

“Perhaps,” chuckles Alucard, his eyes glittering. “You’ll have to show me how you do it, sometime.”

Sypha reaches her hands up to his shoulders with a conspiratorial little grin. “Here, come a little closer and I’ll whisper the secret to you…”

“You do realise that I’m right here, guys?” says Trevor, as Alucard tilts his head down to lend Sypha his ear.

“I know,” she says, smirking over her shoulder at him, “That’s why I’m going to whisper this.”

 

Then she turns back to Alucard and whispers something into his ear that makes him turn a very pretty pink. He chokes back a slightly startled laugh as he straightens up, glancing over at Trevor with an inscrutable expression. “I’m sure that’s not what you do, Sypha.”

She twirls away from him, and winks. “No. Not yet. But I think it would work.”

“You’re probably not wrong…” says Alucard, with a speculative gaze at Trevor.

“I’m never wrong. Is there any more bread, by the way? I’m still hungry.”

 

Alucard points her over to one of the cupboards on the far side of the vast grey-stone kitchen and turns to Trevor with a slightly flushed grin. “Isn’t she great?”

“You’re both bastards,” says Trevor, but there’s more affection in his tone than annoyance.

“I know,” says Alucard, a little dreamily. “You know, she broke my house? She broke my whole house with her magic and she tells me off about stupid things all the time and she wants to eat food and get crumbs on my ludicrously expensive silk sheets and I think she’s _great_.”

“You’re nuts,” says Trevor, patting him on the shoulder companionably. “I mean, I’m not disagreeing with you, but…”

 

“Ok,” says Sypha, trotting back over from the far side of the kitchen with most of a loaf in one of her hands, a large slice of cheese balanced slightly precariously on top of it. “I have food, I’m content. Now let’s go throw Trevor in some water!”

“Hang on,” says Trevor, as his friends haul him bodily to his feet and begin to tug him toward the door, “don’t we have a few things to do first? We need to get over to the library, for one, and see if there’s anything to see there. And then we need to do some research. I mean, we still don’t know what this thing _is_ , let alone-”

Sypha wrinkles her nose. “At this rate, whatever it is, you will scare it off with your stink before we get anywhere near it.”

“Sypha’s right,” says Alucard, “in any case, it’s still early. You can have a bath now and we’ll still have ample time to work out a plan of action, I’m sure.”

“Fine, fine,” grumbles Trevor, as Alucard leads them through another baffling string of corridors. “But if I get sick from over-bathing, it’s your fault. A man once told me that if you submerge yourself in water too often, invisible demons can get in through your pores, and then you get sick. Now, I’m not saying that he was definitely right, but you have to admit that it’s a pretty compelling-”

“That isn’t a thing,” says Alucard, with a sigh. “Besides, even if you don’t like to take baths, you do realise that most people still _wash_ , right? You do know how to use a damp cloth, don’t you?”

Trevor rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Ladies prefer a man with a slight musk, Alucard, not that you would know-”

“No we don’t,” says Sypha.

Trevor considers this for a second. “Alright, well, we can agree to disagree there. I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong with the healthy smell of a man in his natural habitat.”

 

Alucard and Sypha both take the option of dignified silence rather than responding, which Trevor decides counts as him winning the argument. You have to take your victories where you find them, after all.

 

The room that Alucard leads them to is bigger than Trevor had expected; the bath itself is a proper pool, several yards across on either side and frankly more like something he’s seen before in bath-houses than one of the odd little ceramic tubs he’s come across in other rooms in the castle.

Sypha coos delightedly. “Oooh, look at this place! It’s so fancy… oh, Trevor, Alucard must like you very much; the bath I used yesterday was much less pretty than this one.”

Alucard smiles fondly at her. “I’m afraid that yesterday I simply led you to the nearest bathroom. This one is quite some distance from the study, but it does have the advantage of being significantly more spacious.”

“It’s perfect,” says Sypha, decisively. “Hey, Trevor?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if I share your bath?”

Trevor blinks. “You… what?”

“Do you mind if I share your bath?” she repeats, kicking her slippers off and putting her bread and cheese down on a nearby dresser.

Trevor gapes at her.

She rolls her eyes. “Look, I want to have a bath too, and this one is super big, alright? And in any case, you’re right that we ought to be thinking about the thing in the library. So we can multitask! We can talk and have a nice bath. See? Unless…” she frowns, thoughtfully, taking in Trevor’s utterly baffled expression. “I mean, if you’re shy, then I can always go somewhere else, I just figured-”

“I’m not- it’s not that I’m _shy_ , it’s just-”

“Just what? Look, like I say, I can always go somewhere else if it bothers you, but-”

“No!” says Trevor, a fraction too loudly. He clears his throat, feeling his face redden slightly. “No, that’s fine, I just… I thought you had a bath yesterday?”

Sypha stares blankly at him. “Yes?”

“And you’re having another? Already?”

“… yes?”

 

Trevor shrugs, then pulls his shirt off. “Alright. If you want to get demons in your pores, that’s your problem, I guess.”

“I told you,” says Alucard, “that’s not how that works.”

“Sure, sure. Whatever you say.”

“No,” says Alucard, with an exasperated sigh, “No, listen, this isn’t just me talking shit, it’s actually- look, you know, uh, science?”

“Yeah, like when old guys in dungeons turn base metals into gold, right?”

“… no. Not like that. Like, uh…” Alucard frowns. “I suppose that what I mean is more like-”

“Like Pliny the Elder?”

“No. _Not_ like Pliny.”

“You know you can dissolve a diamond by soaking it in goat’s blood?”

“No you can’t!”

“Well, how come in his ‘Natural History’, Pliny says-”

“I’m going to fucking choke you, Belmont. Pliny was a hack. And you’re distracting me from my point here.”

“Which is…?”

“You don’t get ill because you have demons in your pores from soaking yourself in water. That’s ridiculous. You get ill from little… sort of like little creatures which are too small to see, that you find in rotten food or in mucus or in-”

“Are you serious?” says Trevor - because honestly, Alucard must take him for some kind of idiot – “You’re seriously telling me that that one guy who told me how demons get in your pores, pretty much everyone who has common sense, and also fucking _Pliny_ are all talking shit, but I should listen to you when you say there are… tiny bugs? In my snot?”

Alucard sighs. “I know that it sounds ridiculous when you put it like that, but… look, I’ll take you over to my mother’s lab at some point. She has some incredible books in there. Also, she has lenses that you can use to inspect things which the naked eye can’t see, so if you don’t want to take my word about the-”

 

The conversation is cut off by a loud _splash_ as Sypha leaps into the pool of water with gleeful inelegance. Alucard, closer to the edge than Trevor, splutters as a spray of water smacks into him.

Sypha resurfaces with a hoot of joy, pushing her hair out of her eyes and beaming up at Trevor and Alucard. “It’s so warm! How is it so warm? Is there a spring here?”

Alucard shakes his head, looking slightly dazed and quickly averting his gaze as he replies to Sypha. “Uh, no, there’s- there’s a- there’s. Pipes. And a boiler. The water circulates so that it stays fresh and clean - otherwise it would stagnate which would be an issue, obviously - and there’s a-”

“Wait,” says Trevor, narrowing his eyes, “So you admit that _stagnant_ water is a problem?”

“I- well, yes, but not because it has demons in it, it’s more that-”

 Sypha splashes another burst of water at the two of them “C’mon, stop arguing about science and get in!”

 

Trevor grins at her. “Yeah, yeah, you just want to see me naked, huh?”

Sypha cackles. “Take your pants off, Trevor! Take your pants off!” she hoots, gamely. “Look, I will even completely ignore you stripping so I can argue about Pliny the Elder with Alucard, because I am a big huge nerd-”

“Are you actually mad about that?” says Trevor, choking back a laugh at her indignant face.

“No.” she says, a little unconvincingly – which, by the by, is fucking _hilarious_. Only Sypha would get genuinely miffed about the fact that people _weren’t_ watching her change. “I’m just saying that you are both huge nerds, that’s all. And that you should get in the water. It’s really warm.”

 

“The tap behind you will make bubbles, by the way,” says Alucard, clearly amused at her little outburst. “And the one to the right of that is rosewater.”

Sypha coos, turning around with evident delight and paddling over toward the taps. Trevor takes the opportunity to yank his pants off – hilariously, Alucard averts his eyes again, staring up at the ceiling with feigned nonchalance.

“Hey,” whispers Trevor, nudging his arm, “watch this.”

Alucard lowers his eyes very slightly, looking a little flushed. “What is it, Belmont?”

 

Trevor grins, and raises his voice. “Hey, Sypha!”

She turns round, eyes wide. “Yeah, what-”

At which point Trevor takes a running leap into the pool, tucks his legs up to his chest, and lands with a splash that seems to send half the water straight up into the air, and the other half directly into Sypha’s face.

 

He resurfaces to the sound of Alucard’s startled laughter, and the sight of Sypha wiping water out of her eyes. “You _bastard_ ,” she says, “you horrible, awful, terrible little- aargh!” she launches herself toward him with a wordless shriek of rage. Trevor stumbles gamely backward as Sypha chases him around the pool, pelting him first with splashes of water, then with a series of increasingly well-aimed icicles.

“Ow, ow, ok,” he says, laughing and throwing his hands up over his head, “I’m sorry! Sypha, I said I’m sorry!”

“You are so damn lucky that you’re in the water,” she growls, as another hail of slush pelts him in the face, “or I would set your stupid hair on fire!” She turns to Alucard for support. “You see what I have to put up with? Every single time I manage to drag him into at least a river or a lake or something so he will actually _wash_ himself, he repays me like this!”

 

“Ah,” says Alucard, with considerable composure for a man who now has both hands over his eyes and is blushing furiously, “yes, that sounds like Belmont.”

Sypha giggles. “Alucard, why are you covering your eyes like that? Are you embarrassed? Are you _shy_?”

“No,” says Alucard, dryly, “I am merely repulsed by Belmont’s naked form.”

“Hey!” says Trevor. “I look great naked. Don’t I, Sypha?”

She eyeballs him carefully. “Hmm. You look better when you’re _clean_ and naked, though. Go stand in the bubbles and scrub.”

“Aww, but Sypha…”

She waggles a disapproving finger at him. “Scrub! And wash your hair. Then I will tell you that you look pretty.”

 

Trevor grumbles, but does as he’s told. Some battles aren’t worth fighting. Besides, it’s not that he dislikes being clean, not really; sometimes it’s nice to feel what it’s like not to be carrying around several extra pounds in dirt every day. It’s just… something he hasn’t been able to afford to be fussy about in a long time. In fact – not that he’d ever admit this aloud – it’s quite nice to have the luxury of caring about frivolities like cleanliness, now. Urgh. He’s getting soft. Friends, soft beds, warm baths… he’ll be no good for the road any more, at this rate.

 

“So,” says Alucard, as Trevor resurfaces and blinks bubbles out of his eyes, “about the thing in the library- I think the timing is significant-”

“Oh, yeah Alucard,” says Trevor, rolling his eyes (to absolutely no affect, because Alucard still has his hands over his face, but still), “Yeah, the fact that it only makes a noise during the fucking witching hour just MIGHT be significant. Maybe. Just a tiny bit.”

“No need to be flippant, Belmont. I’m simply trying to work though the issues here one thing at a time. What we know of this entity so far is the timing of its presence, the noise it makes, and if my experiences in attempting to find it are to be trusted we might wager a guess that it’s at least mostly incorporeal… so perhaps a ghost? After the battle I wouldn’t be surprised if there were… lingering presences. Though that doesn’t really explain why it’s in the library, rather than here.”

“Solid point. Though I guess it could also be a banshee,” suggests Trevor, “I mean, they’re attracted to places where there’s been deaths, right? And they yell a lot. Or is that the other ones… what are they called… barghests. You know. The big dogs?”

“That wailing didn’t sound much like a dog to me, Belmont.”

“No, alright, but technically a barghest isn’t a dog, so who’s to say whether or not it would sound like-”

 

“Hey, Alucard,” says Sypha, sweetly.

“Yes?”

“You look silly with your hands over your eyes.”

Alucard clears his throat awkwardly. “Yes, I just- well, I don’t want to- uh… to embarrass anyone by- I mean, of course I _wouldn’t_ look, but if I accidentally-”

“It is impossible to embarrass us. Isn’t that right, Trevor?”

“Huh?” says Trevor, still trying to shake water out of his ears. “Oh, yeah, that’s true. That’s very true. If it was possible for me to feel shame, I would have died of it years ago, I’m pretty sure.”

“You know what,” says Sypha, swimming over to the edge of the pool nearest Alucard and gazing up at him with her elbows propped against the tiles, “you’ll probably feel better if you just strip.”

Alucard makes a slightly choked noise. “I- pardon?”

“Well, you know, it’s a bit weird if we’re naked and you’re not. But if we’re all just here having a bath naked _together_ then it’s a perfectly normal friend activity that friends do. Probably.”

 

Alucard laughs, and begins to unlace the front of his shirt with a resigned expression. “You have a very strange definition of ‘normal’, Sypha.”

She shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe I just enjoy being in the company of attractive naked people, you know?”

“Ah,” says Trevor, with a contented sigh, “a woman after my own heart, truly.”

Sypha raises her hand for a hi-five, which Trevor happily returns.

 

Alucard is bright red by the time he joins them in the water; a situation which is not at all aided by the fact that Sypha immediately swims over to him and plants a kiss on his cheek.

“See,” she says, “don’t you feel better now you’re naked?”

“I certainly feel _something_ ,” says Alucard, in a voice that is a strange mix of delighted and rather strangled.

Sypha rests a hand on his shoulder and smiles up at him, an impish gleam in her eyes. “And what would that be, hmm?”

“It’s probably bloodlust,” teases Trevor, “look, he’s got us here, unarmed and defenceless, and now he’s going to eat us.”

Alucard rolls his eyes, grinning slightly in spite of himself. His voice comes out still sounding slightly rough. “Belmont, if that was the plan, I would have kept my clothes on. And my sword with me.”

“Ah, but maybe you’re trying to throw us off our guard. Make us feel at ease.”

 

“Or maybe,” says Alucard, “I’m trying to make sure you two will actually listen to what I have to say about whatever that thing in the library is, and for some reason the only way I’m able to do that right now is to be naked in a bath with you both.”

Trevor shrugs. “I’m just saying, I think there’s an ulterior motive here.”

“And you think that motive is that I… want to drink your blood?”

“Hey, I’m just spitballing.”

“You are an idiot,” says Sypha.

“What? How am I-” begins Trevor.

“Now, Alucard,” says Sypha, ignoring Trevor’s spluttered protests, “what were you saying about barghests? Those are the big dogs with the glowing eyes, yes? We call them gytrash. Come here, I’ll do your hair while you explain.”

 

Alucard obliges, and as Sypha lifts a bottle of some kind of perfumed soap to his head and begins to question them both on the logistics of fighting dog-demons, Trevor is left with a vague but growing sense that he might have missed some kind of important subtext here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anybody else got a medieval history degree and a longstanding desire to go back in time and ask pliny the elder what the FUCK he was thinking like 90% of the time? because, boy oh boy, that guy came out with some royal fucking bollocks. he was pretty cool, dont get me wrong but. goats blood? diamonds??? PLINY PLZ. 
> 
> thank you all once again for the lovely comments & for the kudos, you guys are awesome & I'm glad ur enjoying urselves <3


	8. Chapter 8

If you’d asked him prior to this morning, Trevor would have said it was impossible for a wolf to look smug. Alucard, however, is clearly committed to being insufferable no matter what form he takes. He’s currently outside the front door in his wolf shape, trotting over the top of the piled-up snowdrift (easily over head-height by this point) and wagging his tail in evident delight while Trevor and Sypha look on, trying to work out how the hell they’re going to make it to the library and back.

“Well,” says Sypha, burying her neck into her cloak with an exaggerated shiver, “I suppose that it isn’t so far to melt our way through… although finding the entrance will be a bit of an adventure, I imagine.”

“Boof!” says Alucard, settling himself on top of the snow drift and tucking his paws under his stupid smug wolf face.

“Fuck you,” says Trevor.

Sypha glares at him. “Trevor!”

“What?! He’s being an asshole. It’s alright for him, isn’t it? He’s got an inbuilt fur coat and snowshoes! He’s not going to have to traipse through six foot something of snowy bullshit, he can just scurry around on top, laughing at us, can’t he?”

“Don’t be silly. He can’t laugh at us. He’s a dog.”

“He’s going to be laughing on the inside, though.”

“No he won’t! He’s a good boy. Aren’t you?” She turns to Alucard, who pricks his ears up and wags his tail contentedly, tongue lolling out of his mouth. “Who’s a good boy? Come here, who’s a good-”

 

Alucard launches himself at Sypha in a shower of powder-loose snow, knocking her backwards onto the carpet.

She squeals, evidently delighted. “You’re too big for that! Look at you!”

“How come,” says Trevor, valiantly resisting the urge to reach over and pet Alucard (yes, his fur looks soft, but yes, it would definitely be weird), “he’s allowed to do that, huh? If I jumped off a snowdrift and knocked you on your ass, you’d set my hair on fire.”

“That,” says Sypha, trying to look as dignified as possible with a very excitable wolf licking her face, “is because you are not big and cute and _fluffy_ \- ah! Hey, that tickles! Stop putting your cold little nose on my neck! Hey!”

Alucard makes an apologetic little huffing noise, then licks her nose when she smiles at him.

 

“Hang on,” says Trevor, “Sorry, but what part of ‘big, cute, and fluffy’ is not covered by my current physical state?” He gestures indignantly at his own fur coated and booted form.

Alucard makes a weird wheezing sound which Trevor belatedly realises must be his lungs attempting to reconcile his current wolfish shape with his evident desire to laugh at Trevor.

“See! I told you he was going to fucking laugh at us! What did I tell you?”

“He’s not laughing at us,” says Sypha, giving Alucard a shove so that he rolls over onto his back, still making his stupid wheezy laughing noises. “He’s laughing at _you_. And you deserve it! Fancy being jealous of just a big cute adorable dog, hmm?” She ruffles her hands through the fur on Alucard’s stomach, and he wiggles with sheer delight, paws waving in the air, tail wagging.

 

“He’s still _Alucard_ ,” grumbles Trevor. “I mean, he’s a wolf, but he’s still- do you not see anything weird about this? You’re just sat there petting Alucard’s belly. You know? And he- did he lick your face again?! Why is this not weird to you?”

Sypha scoffs. “Well, he can’t exactly speak to me in this shape, can he? That’s how he says he likes me. Isn’t that right, Alucard?”

He waggles his tail, resting his head in her lap and gazing up at her contentedly.

“See?”

 

Trevor sighs. “Whatever. I don’t like it. I don’t like his stupid wolf face.”

“I’m sure he likes you, though!”

Alucard snaps back into his human (well… half human, anyway) form with a shit-eating grin. “No I don’t.” He leans his head back in Sypha’s lap and yawns luxuriously.

Sypha smack his nose lightly, and he yelps. “Ow! Hey, what was that-”

“Be nicer to him,” says Sypha, her stern tone distinctly undermined by the fact that she’s now running her hands softly through his hair.

“Fuck you, Alucard,” says Trevor, gamely.

“Hey!” Sypha glares. “Don’t make me come over there! Play nice.”

“Buy me dinner first, Belmont,” says Alucard, with another lazy yawn.

Trevor rolls his eyes. “Jackass.”

Alucard grins. “Bastard.”

 

“You two are ludicrous,” says Sypha, shunting Alucard ungraciously off her lap and standing up to stare out of the door, hands on hips. “Ok, ok, back on task; you are both distracting me with your charming foolery! Alucard, you can show us over to the library, yes?”

Alucard, still on the floor, shrugs. “I should be able to. You’ll have to help me get in, though. After you left I managed to fix up that huge hole we left in the library roof, but-”

“Oh yeah,” says Trevor, “huh. The hole in the roof. And the… did you put stairs in?”

“I- no. I did not.” He stands, brushing snow off his coat with a slight wince. “But there’s a trapdoor, and a rope ladder. It’s not pretty but it’s functional, which is… about as much as I could manage, under the circumstances.” He chews his lip, frowning. “I hope it holds up with all this snow.”

Trevor claps a cheery hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Your confidence in my abilities is perhaps a little naïve, here. Being a handyman is… not exactly my strong suit. My lack of expertise has certainly hampered my repairs on the castle.”

“Are you actually admitting that you’re not perfect? Am I mishearing you?”

Alucard smiles wanly. “Close to perfection though I may be, even I have my weaknesses, Belmont. And it turns out that constructing ceilings is one of them.”

“You should have got somebody in to help you out.”

“You know, I did contemplate visiting the nearby villages and asking for workmen, but… well. You can imagine how that would have looked.” He bares his fangs, smirking. “Hello townspeople… please come to my scary castle to help me put an airtight lid on a big pit in the ground full of totally not illegal or banned books, which I will definitely not seal any of you into for my nefarious blood-sucking purposes…” he snaps playfully at Trevor’s neck, then ducks away, laughing.

 

Trevor snorts. “I guess when you put it like that…”

“Mmm. It doesn’t tend to go over well.”

“I don’t know,” says Sypha. “I would be quite interested to go visit a mysterious scary castle if a handsome man invited me.”

“Oh my god,” says Trevor. “God, you are just… the worst.”

“Like you’re any better! Is that not why we’re here right now?”

Trevor contemplates this briefly. “That’s- it’s different.”

“How so?”

“He didn’t invite us. We invited ourselves.”

“So you admit that we’re here because he’s handsome?”

“No! We’re here because he’s… because… we didn’t want to leave him on his own. Because. Y’know… because we….. care about him…” says Trevor, feeling his face heat slightly. “Or whatever. I guess.”

 

Sypha cackles. “That’s worse! That’s worse! Alucard, that’s worse, right?”

Alucard smiles, looking momentarily misty-eyed. “Oh, definitely. I’m uh… I’m glad you’re here, though.”

“Hmmph,” says Trevor, ambling over to kick at the snow drift outside the door rather than catch Alucard’s eye. Or Sypha’s. If anything, Sypha would be worse; she’ll _gloat_. “Well, just so you know, that doesn’t mean I’ve let my guard down so… so don’t even think about trying to suck my blood when I’m not paying attention. I’ve got my eye on you.”

Alucard rolls his eyes. “I don’t need to catch you off-guard to beat you in a fight, Belmont. Besides, I don’t drink blood from anybody unless it’s offered.”

“… who the fuck _offers_ that?”

Alucard laughs. “You’d be surprised.”

“He’s very polite, after all,” says Sypha, stroking Alucard’s hair. “Look, could you say no to that face?”

Alucard flutters his eyelashes and pouts, and they both laugh.

“I mean, yeah, I say no to that face all the time,” says Trevor. “And, like… it’s _blood_. That belongs _inside_ your body. Even I know that much.”

Alucard shrugs. “You can lose a surprising amount and suffer no particular ill-effects. Besides, in the right setting, I am led to believe that the experience is… not unpleasant.”

“Oh, sure, sure, because having somebody tear a hole in your neck sounds just great! Not.”

Sypha fixes Alucard with a speculative gaze. “When you say ‘not unpleasant’…”

He wriggles out from under her arm, avoiding her eye. “Well, it’s, um. Rather intimate, I suppose.”

“Ohoho,” says Sypha, her eyes lighting up, “Oh, like… with kissing and stuff?”

“It- I- I mean, yes, sometimes, but it’s not always… that is, it doesn’t _have_ to be- I mean, you can, uh, decant it, of course, but-”

“Oh,” says Trevor, with slow-dawning realisation, “Oh, wait, so is it like-”

 

Alucard turns into a wolf.

 

“Hey,” says Sypha, shaking a fist at him as he leaps out of the doors and up onto the snowdrift beyond, “hey, you can’t just avoid awkward questions by turning into a wolf! Get back here and tell me about eating people!”

The wolf makes a big and thoroughly unconvincing show of being suddenly deeply interested in one of its own pawprints.

“He is the worst,” says Sypha, decisively. “You hear that, Alucard? You are the _worst_ , and I like you a _lot_!”

Even Trevor has to laugh at the sight of a wolf attempting not to look bashful.

Sypha grins. “Alright, well, let’s get a move on to the library.” She claps her hands together and summons a flame, gesturing it forward to melt a path through the snow. It takes longer – a lot longer – than it did on the way in, but it seems to work. She sighs. “At least we aren’t going far, I guess…”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> real talk, wolf alucard is just the CUTEST thing... like remember when he had a sword?? when he was just a big ol fluffy boy with a sword?? honestly iconic scene
> 
> as ever, my heart belongs to all the commenters, leavers of kudos, and to YOU if you're reading this. i love u. stay funky fresh and hydrated and never wash ur white clothes with ur fav bright red jumper. it WILL end in tears.


	9. Chapter 9

Alucard really isn’t kidding about his construction abilities. The ‘roof’ he’s put up over the library – what Trevor can see of it once they’ve dug down through the snow to the trapdoor, anyway - is composed chiefly from slightly rotten wood planks, rusty nails, and prayers. It certainly won’t be waterproof, which is bound to be a problem when the snow melts, but for now it seems to be doing the job. Alucard shifts back out of his wolf form, and pops the trapdoor open, descending into the darkness below. Sypha follows shortly after him, a single bobbing flame springing into existence over her shoulder to illuminate the depths. Trevor sighs.

“I fucking hate rope ladders,” he says, to nobody in particular. Then he squares his shoulders and scrambles down into the darkness, yanking the trap door shut behind him.

 

Descending the rope ladder is a predictably unpleasant experience; it sways and creaks in a way which simultaneously makes Trevor wish he had a drink with him and also feel vaguely as though he’s already had too many. There’s a particularly alarming wrenching noise from up above just as he reaches the bottom of the ladder – alarming enough that Alucard glances upward, brow furrowed.

“I hope that we can get out on that thing. I didn’t really install it with somebody so… bulky in mind.”

Trevor feels his shoes hit solid ground and gives a sigh of relief. “Urgh. Oh, I hated that. There’s just something about- bulky? I’m bulky?”

“Compared to me, yes. I would imagine you weigh rather more than that ladder was intended to carry.”

“Yeah, well, it’s all muscle. You know that, right? It’s _muscle_.”

In the dim light cast by Sypha’s hovering ball of fire, Trevor can see Alucard’s eyes glitter with repressed mirth. “Of course I know that, you dolt. I’ve seen you shirtless enough times in the past twenty-four hours to be pretty aware of that particular fact.”

 

Trevor bristles slightly at that, and more so when he catches sight of Sypha stifling a laugh as she goes to light some of the nearby candles. “Yeah, well, it was with good reason! My clothes were damp, and then I was having a bath, I- I mean, it’s not as though I’ve been _gratuitously_ shirtless,” he huffs, “unlike some people I could mention.”

Alucard raises one of his stupid perfect eyebrows into a stupid perfect arch. “Gratuitously shirtless? Who, me?”

“Yes, you! I’m just saying, it’s pretty rich of you to be mocking me taking my shirt off for perfectly reasonable and justified causes when you’re- I mean, you know. You’re always taking your top off.”

“I am not-”

“Oh, come on, Alucard, you spend more time out of your shirt than it it. Doesn’t he, Sypha?”

Alucard turns to Sypha, indignant. “I take my shirt off a perfectly reasonable amount of the time. Don’t I? Tell him-”

Sypha raises her hands. “Hey, don’t drag me into this.”

“But Sypha-”

“Oh please-”

 

She sighs. “Alright, you want my take? Maybe Alucard does take his shirt off a little more often than is strictly necessary.”

“Hah!” says Trevor, delighted; “I told you so!”

“… and maybe Trevor pays a little more attention to that fact than is strictly necessary, too.”

“Wait, what?” says Trevor, as Alucard snickers.

“So in a way,” continues Sypha, with a wry shrug of her shoulders, “you are both just two big idiots, hmm? You’re pretty lucky that you have me. Somebody around here has to be the sensible one, after a-” her eyes widen abruptly. “Oh shit! _Shitshitshitshit shitshit_ SHIT!”

 

It takes Trevor a second to piece together what has happened. During this second, quite a lot of fire appears. This is because – as far as he can tell, anyway - in the momentary distraction of insulting her two friends, Sypha has lost focus on one of the little floating flames she’s been using to light candles, and managed to set a bookshelf on fire.

 

“Shit,” says Alucard, with his trademark elegance. “Shit- that… fire?”

Sypha hops on the spot, agitated. “Oh no! Oh this is- hang on, let me-” She hesitates for a fraction of a second, and then she claps her hands together and a ball of ice begins to form between her palms.

Trevor grabs her by the shoulder before she manages to pour ice water over a stack of books that are probably literally worth their weight in gold. “I’ve got this.” He hauls his snow-damp coat off his back and, in one smooth movement, throws it over the rapidly expanding fire and tamps it down. Within seconds, barring a slightly smoky smell and an unsightly new mark on the wood of the bookcase, all signs of the burgeoning fire are gone.

 

 “So… what were you saying about somebody having to be the sensible one?” he asks, turning back toward Sypha with a shit-eating grin.

She blushes. “Oh, alright, that-”

“You walked into that,” says Alucard, squeezing her shoulder affectionately. “It’s setting yourself up for failure, really.”

“What?”

“Pitching yourself as the sensible one, of course. Bound to end badly.”

“But if I’m not the sensible one, then who-”

Alucard grasps her by both shoulders, and looks her firmly in the eye. “None of us are the sensible one. That is the dark and terrible truth we must all accept. There is absolutely _nobody_ here who is even close to approaching sensible.”

“I’m sensible!”

“If you were, you wouldn’t be hanging out with us.”

“But…” Sypha contemplates this for a moment, stroking her chin. “Oh. Huh. That is a pretty good point I guess.”

Alucard shrugs. “I try.”

“Still,” she says, “comparatively, I am definitely-”

“Compared to what? To me? To – god forbid – Trevor? It’s a pretty low bar, isn’t it? I would be willing to bet the contents of this entire library that there have been fucking deep sea sponges with more rationality and common sense than Belmont!”

“Oy!” says Trevor.

Sypha just waggles her finger at Alucard, and narrows her eyes, grinning slightly. “So… you admit that I’m the sensible one? Comparatively?”

“In comparison to Belmont, a man who I once watched drunkenly piss on his own foot and then blame it on a nearby dog? Yes. Yes, compared to that, you’re sensible. But by any reasonable metric-”

 

Sypha throws her hands up and turns away. “No! No reasonable metrics here! I am the sensible one. That’s just how it is. Now, let’s go hunt a ghost.”

 

She strides boldly forth, and disappears amongst the shelves, humming softly to herself. Alucard turns to Trevor with an expression of fond exasperation. “You at least understand what I’m getting at, don’t you? I-”

Trevor shakes his head. “I’m not going to side with you, not after you ditched me in it like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like telling Sypha that I pissed on my own foot! Now I look like an idiot.”

“You already looked like an idiot, Belmont.”

“How the fuck did I look like an idiot?”

Alucard rolls his eyes. “Well, in my personal opinion, pissing on one’s own appendages is something that quite naturally makes a man look like an idiot. No assistance from me required.”

“Well it’s not _my_ fault I was drunk.”

“Yes it is! Nobody else was pouring mead down your stupid great gullet!”

“I- alright, no, but- but you brought us to the tavern. So.”

“No I didn’t.”

Trevor frowns. “Oh. Huh. Maybe I’m thinking of the other time I-”

Alucard steeples his fingers and takes a deep, calming breath. “Do you mean to say that you have _more than once_ pissed drunkenly on your own foot and then blamed it on a passing animal?”

 

Trevor - deciding that at this point in the conversation it’s probably better to attempt to preserve at least a semblance of deniability - says nothing. He maintains what he would very much like to think of as a dignified silence, only it isn’t because it’s the sort of silence that happens when a man is trying not to admit to having terrible aim while pissing drunk. It is frankly impossible for such a silence to be even slightly dignified. He tries, though. Oh, how he tries.

 

Alucard sighs deeply. “Why am I surprised by that? I shouldn’t be surprised. It makes perfect sense. And yet, here I am. Surprised.”

“Well, you know me. Fuck-up in residence. Never more than a minute from a new low.”

Alucard slings an arm round Trevor’s shoulder, and squeezes. “You’re not so bad, Belmont. You don’t fuck _everything_ up.”

“No?”

“No. You make Sypha very happy, I think.” He sounds… surprisingly genuine.

Trevor is taken aback. “… yeah?”

 

“Mmm.” Alucard tilts his head slightly, leaning into Trevor’s shoulder. Up close he’s… strange. Not a bad strange just… a little colder than a person should be. A little stiller. But there’s something nice about having him there, nonetheless. Then, in a tone that sounds almost, but not quite, totally relaxed, he says, “You make me very happy, too, for what it’s worth.”

“I… do?”

“Well, you know. It’s nice not to be the only fuck-up around here.”

Trevor grins. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Your presence makes me feel distinctly less bad about myself. You’re like a shining vision of how much worse it could be. Like, is my life a complete unsalvageable mess? Yes. But could it be worse? Also yes - I could be you. I could be pissing on dogs in alleyways-”

 

Lightning fast, Trevor slips his arm round Alucard’s waist and has shoved him almost to the floor before Alucard realises what’s happening. “Hey, what the-”

“I didn’t piss on a dog!” he says, grinning as he fends off a fairly half-hearted couple of punches and rolls Alucard onto his back. “I pissed on my _feet_ and blamed it on a dog, that’s a totally different-”

Alucard gives Trevor another shove, but his attempts to gain control of the fight are significantly hampered by the fact that he’s damp-eyed with laughter. “Oh, my God, Trevor, the fact that that distinction matters to you at all is- God- I can’t-” he dissolves into another fit of laughter, head dropping back onto the carpet, exposing the long, pale line of his neck. “That’s so good,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “You are- you are unlike anyone I have ever met, Trevor Belmont. You are a specimen unknown to science. You are a delight of a man.”

“I thought I was the fuck-up to end all fuck-ups?” says Trevor. For some reason, his voice comes out a little rough.

Alucard blinks at him, then smiles, fondly. “Well, of course.” He reaches his hand up to touch Trevor’s cheek, which – it must be noted - is definitely not in the usual repertoire of ‘acceptable wrestling moves among friends’.

A small part of Trevor’s brain registers the fact that Alucard is, in fact, very much within kissing distance. This thought is immediately discarded because, of course, Trevor does not want to kiss Alucard, not even slightly, not even the tiniest, teeniest bit.

“I suppose,” says Alucard, sweeping his thumb gently over one of the scars on Trevor’s cheekbone, “I suppose that’s the one respect in which we’re… not so different. It’s comforting, I think. To see a part of yourself in someone else-”

“What part?” says Trevor, before he can stop himself. Jesus. His brain is currently on a one-organ mission to make him literally die of embarrassment, apparently.

 

But before he can even begin to backtrack away from that particular conversational gem, Sypha comes bounding round the corner and skids to to a halt.

“Hey, so I found this weird- oh! Am I… interrupting something?” she says, eyes wide as saucers.

“Nope!” says Trevor, shooting upright with the sort of speed that can only be achieved when fuelled by the sudden realisation that you’ve been straddling your friend for significantly longer than was probably necessary or reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

“No!” says Alucard, fading briefly out of existence and re-appearing in a blur of light about ten feet away, and then trying to look nonchalant about having done that, and then totally failing to look nonchalant about having done that and instead staring fixedly at the floor.

 

Sypha looks from Trevor, to Alucard, and then to Trevor again. “O-kay,” she says, slowly, eyes swivelling half out of her head. “Well, I hate to interrupt-”

“You weren’t,” says Trevor. “We were nearly finished.”

Sypha raises an eyebrow. Alucard makes a slightly strangled noise.

“We- I mean. Fighting. We were nearly finished. Fighting. Each other.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Yep,” says Trevor, who is sweating a lot considering that technically what he’s saying is pretty much true.

“Sure,” says Sypha, “Well, in that case, I hate to _not_ interrupt-”

“That does sound like you,” says Alucard, with a smirk.

“Hey, shut up!”

“Sorry.”

Sypha shakes her head at him. “So rude! Anyway, look, I found a weird thing a few shelves away. You should come look. I think it’s, like, a little shrine? Also, there’s some blood. It looks creepy.”

 

Alucard’s gaze darkens, and he sweeps over to Sypha, linking his arm with hers as she points the way toward whatever weird shit she’s managed to find. “Blood? That’s… ominous, although it may form a useful cornerstone of our investigation if I can collect enough to analyse…”

They drift out of earshot. Just before they’re out of sight, Alucard turns his head and flashes Trevor a small, private smile.

 

Ah, thinks Trevor. Oh. Well _shit_.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know, much as I love to clown trevor for his romantically constipated ways, the whole 'haha this is wrestling we are having a fight that is jokey and fun because we are just two pals having a goof only actually oops no we're not and this is gay' is actually remarkably similar to how i ended up getting together with an ex girlfriend of mine. so. u know. theres hope for us all? or something
> 
> thank u once for for all the wonderful comments, they genuinely make my day! cheers folks <3


	10. Chapter 10

“It’s not a shrine,” says Alucard, gingerly picking up what looks like a small but very elaborate silver and gold jar with the tips of his fingers, “it’s a reliquary. At least, I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Oooh,” coos Sypha, “I’ve heard of those! I’ve never seen one up close, though…”

“I still don’t know what it is,” says Trevor.

“A reliquary,” drawls Alucard. “Oh come on, you must know what that is.”

Trevor gives him a blank stare.

“My god, you really are an uneducated moron, aren’t you, Belmont – have you never been inside a church?”

Trevor shrugs. “I’m normally not super welcome. Tend to steer clear. Also, all the incense gives me headaches.”

Alucard sighs. “I see. Well, it’s a container for the remains of a saint.”

 

Trevor eyes the tiny vessel rather sceptically. “Doesn’t look like you’d fit a whole saint in that. Unless it’s a particularly holy mouse, I guess. Or a cockroach.”

“It’s not the whole saint, you idiot,” says Alucard. “Just a little piece. Probably a finger or something.”

“Urgh,” says Sypha, wrinkling her nose. “Gross!”

“That depends on how you look at it, I suppose,” says Alucard, thoughtfully. “It’s probably just bone, now, anyway.”

“So it’s holy?” asks Trevor. “Can you even touch it?”

“ _Can_ I touch it? Yes. Of course. That’s what I’m doing right now, isn’t it?”

“Alright, you- god, you’re such a smart-arse. Come on. You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Trevor sighs. “I mean _should_ you touch it? Isn’t it going to… I don’t know. Burn your unholy skin or something?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to be. I think it’s broken, anyway. Look.”

 

Trevor and Sypha lean closer as he proffers the reliquary for inspection. It’s almost unspeakably fancy. Close up, Trevor can see that it’s been made in the shape of a very ornate little church; there are a lot of flouncy metallic bits and small but terribly ornate crosses. And every surface that isn’t covered in gold or silver is brightly enamelled with tiny scenes featuring – in Trevor’s opinion, anyway - a frankly excessive number of persons with halos and/or wings. It’s probably quite pretty, if you like that sort of thing, but Trevor can’t help but think that it’s just a little bit… tacky.

“Huh,” says Sypha. “Oh, I see, the little window near the top is smashed! I like the paintings, though. Who’s that?” She points at one of the little enamel scenes.

Alucard squints. “The one in the habit? I think she’s the saint. Look, there’s her halo. Oh, and she’s in a few places – see, that’s her again, reading her Bible, and that’s her praying. And there she is on the other side,” he says, turning the reliquary round cautiously, “and she’s… ah, she’s praying again. And praying some more over here. But look! I think that’s her observing a witch-burning… and then doing some more praying. There’s probably a bit of one of her bones in here, then. Or some of her hair. Or a scrap of her second-best underwear or something. I don’t know. Relics are weird like that.”

Sypha regards the little vessel with renewed interest. “Oooh, do you really think that there’s a saint’s knickers in there? That’s much more fun than a nasty old finger.”

Alucard laughs. “No. Although, I admit, it wouldn’t totally surprise me. People will put just about anything in these things, I swear. It really is usually bones, though.” He taps another of the enamel panels. “Look! Here’s her name – Saint Walpurga. Interesting. The style of the reliquary certainly looks Italian, but Walpurga is far more popular in Germanic regions… perhaps it was a commission…” He frowns, thoughtful.

 

“Why the fuck do you even know so much about all this...” Trevor waves a hand vaguely at the reliquary, “all this church stuff? I wouldn’t have thought you were much of a fan of theirs, all things considered.”

“Hmm,” says Alucard, gently placing the reliquary back onto its little plinth, “No, indeed. I’m really not.”

“Then how come-”

Alucard rubs his temples and sighs. “Belmont, would you consider your ancestors to be ‘fans’ of vampires?”

“... no?”

“And yet, here we stand, in a vast repository of knowledge about vampires that has been proudly constructed and maintained by the Belmont line!”

Trevor scratches his head. “Well, yeah, but-”

“Knowing about things that you like is pleasant; knowing about things you hate is _necessary_. So, yes, I know a not insignificant number of things about the Church.”

“Huh,” says Trevor. “Yeah. Guess that makes sense.”

 

Alucard picks up the reliquary again, lifting it up to his face and staring intently at the broken pane of glass toward the top. “Aside from that,” he continues, his tone carefully light, “my mother taught me about matters of religion, at least a little bit. Her family were faithful sorts. She was too, I think, in her own way. In any case, I had to know enough not to upset grandma when we visited.”

“You have a grandma?” says Trevor.

Alucard fixes him with a particularly withering stare as he returns the reliquary once more to its stand. “Of course I have a grandma. Everyone has a grandma. That’s how lineage works.”

“I know,” says Trevor, “but you- I mean, is she-” he turns his gaze to Sypha, appealing for aid.

“What I think Trevor is trying to say,” she says, resting her palm lightly on Alucard’s arm, “is do you have a grandma who is... you know. Not dead?”

“Yes, there’s a word for that. We call it ‘alive’,” deadpans Alucard. “And yes, of course she-” Then he freezes for a second, and his smile drops. “God, I suppose I don’t actually know. I haven’t seen her since... well, I visited after mother...” his throat seems to catch on the word. “After she... well. You know. And then I came back here and father was- and then I was sleeping under Gresit, and then there was the night horde and the fight and then-” He stares off into the mid-distance, jaw clenched.

 

After a moment, Sypha squeezes his arm. “Alucard?”

 “I don’t know,” he says, finally, “I don’t actually know. I haven’t visited since... that is, I didn’t think about... well, it’s not a big village, I suppose. Perhaps the horde passed it by. God. Shit. I didn’t even think...” His voice wavers, eyes suddenly damp.

 

Trevor honestly couldn’t say whether it’s him or Sypha who starts it, but within half a second they’ve both got their arms around Alucard in a very tight group hug.

“Thanks,” he says, thickly, and then, “Sorry.”

Sypha smacks him on the side of the head. “No! You’re not allowed to be sorry! Listen, we will come with you to visit your granny once the snow clears. Won’t we, Trevor?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. We should probably clear up the corpses in the dining room, first.”

Sypha nods. “That’s true. And we should fix the broken windows, too.”

Alucard lets out a slightly shaky laugh. “Probably. God, mother would have an absolute fit if she could see the state I’ve left the place in.”

Trevor grins. “You know what? I think mine would be just the same.” He gestures broadly at the patched-up hole in the roof, the collapsed staircases, the damaged walls. “I can almost hear her now, scolding me for letting all those demons in and making such a terrible mess of the place… she had an impressive bellow. You could be halfway across the house and you’d hear it – the exact moment she figured out who’d eaten the honey cakes, or broken the jam jars, or locked the cat in the airing cupboard again. Poor bastard cat. My sisters used to catch him, sometimes, and put ribbons on his tail. God knows how or why, because he was a vicious little thing and he never thanked them with anything other than hissing and scratches, but there you have it.”

“My mother was never much of a one for shouting,” says Alucard, thoughtfully. “But she’d make you feel genuinely bad about whatever you’d done, that was the worst of it. ‘I’m not angry, Adrian,’ she’d say, ‘I’m just disappointed.’”

Trevor shudders. “Oh, now that’s just the _cruel_. Disappointed! Urgh.”

“It really is. God save us all from disappointed mothers.”                 

“Amen to that!” says Trevor, with a snort of laughter.

 

Alucard extracts himself from the hug, still a little misty-eyed but smiling softly. “I… thank you. Both of you. It would be good to leave the castle for a bit, I think.”

“No kidding,” says Sypha, rolling her eyes affectionately at him. “After we go check on your granny, we’re going to make you come travelling with us. We should visit my grandpa, of course. He’ll like you. And then…” She gasps softly, eyes lighting up. “I want to take you to the beach! We should go to a beach.”

“A… beach?” says Alucard.

“Yes!” she says, turning her head a little, “It would be so nice - don’t you think a beach would be nice, Trevor?”

Trevor shrugs. “If you want to go, I want to go.”

“You are so cute, sometimes,” says Sypha, patting his cheek. “It almost makes me forget how annoying you are the rest of the time.”

 

Alucard stifles a chuckle at Trevor’s indignant expression, bending down a little to peer once more at the little reliquary. He taps the broken pane of glass thoughtfully. “So you found it on the floor?”

Sypha nods.

“Hmm. I wonder if whatever was inside this fell out when it smashed… Sypha, did you see anything else on the floor around here? Any bits of bone or cloth or-”

“Blood?” she volunteers; “Would there be blood inside that, maybe?”

Alucard cocks his head. “Maybe. Only I can’t smell anything that would indicate… ah. Hmm. There’s something on the glass that might be…”

“There’s some on the carpet over here, look, near where I found the reliquary.” Sypha gestures toward the foot of one of the bookcases. “See?”

Alucard crouches next to the spot she’s pointing at, and frowns. “Strange. It looks like blood, but it doesn’t _smell_ like blood.”

“Oooh, are you going to lick it?” asks Trevor.

Alucard fixes him with a withering glare. “Am I going to _what_?”

“Lick it!”

“Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“To… I don’t know. To see what kind of blood it is.”

“Trevor, we don’t even know for certain where it came from – I am _not_ going to put it in my mouth.”

“That’s never stopped me,” says Sypha, cheerfully.

Trevor gives her a hi-five.

 

Alucard puts his head in his hands and exhales deeply. “My god, sometimes I feel like I forget how awful both of you are.”

“What?!” says Sypha, eyes wide, the very picture of innocence.

Alucard shakes his head at her, then turns back to Trevor. “In answer to your question, no, I’m not going to lick this mysterious – and, by the way, possibly several hundred year old - blood we’ve found on the floor, partly because the carpets in here haven’t been cleaned in a very long time and partly because I can find out everything I need to know about this blood by smelling it. Does that satisfy you?”

“Well,” says Trevor, a little defensively, “I didn’t know that you only needed to smell it! And anyway, you might have been hungry.”

“… hungry?”

“I mean, you eat blood, right? So maybe if you were hungry-”

Alucard blinks. “Just because I c _an_ consume blood doesn’t mean I feel viscerally compelled to lap flecks of it off a mouldy old carpet. Have some fucking common sense, Trevor! I mean, you eat chicken, yes? But if you found a piece of chicken just lying around in some abandoned dusty old building you wouldn’t actually e _at_ it, would you?!”

Trevor hums thoughtfully. “Well, how hungry am I?”

“… what.”

“In this hypothetical scenario, how hungry am I? And does the chicken still look alright? Because, you know, as long as it doesn’t smell too funny I honestly-”

“God in heaven,” breathes Alucard, shaking his head in utter disdain. “It’s a miracle that you’re alive, Belmont. A fucking miracle.”

“Just because I’m not a prissy little arsehole who’s too fancy to eat shit off the fucking floor doesn’t mean-”

 

“Anyway,” says Alucard, straightening up and stretching his arms out with a long yawn, “it’s not actually blood at all.”

“What?” says Trevor.

“What?” says Sypha.

Alucard shrugs. “Well, it’s still liquid after – I’m assuming, based on the design of the reliquary – several hundred years, so that’s a start. Blood normally congeals pretty fast, in my experience. And it smells a little like iron, which threw me for a moment, but it doesn’t smell like _blood_ , not really. Certainly not human blood. I think it’s probably something that’s supposed to look like it could be a saint’s blood, which it does a pretty good job of, but… it’s not actual blood.”

“Oh,” says Sypha, looking a little crestfallen, “so there’s no saint bits in the fancy jar?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Trevor frowns. “Then why was it here in the first place?”

“Probably whichever of your ancestors purchased it believed it to be genuine. There’s a pretty lucrative trade in fake relics, after all. The right ones can be worth a great deal.”

 

Sypha folds her arms, and circles the little plinth that the reliquary rests upon. “That still doesn’t explain why it was knocked over, though, or who did it. I’m sure we didn’t see anything like this on the floor when we were here before.”

“No,” says Alucard, “and I’m sure it wasn’t like this when I came down here before. Which suggests that perhaps our very loud intruder might be… somewhat more corporeal than I had assumed.”

Trevor feels himself instinctively step a bit closer to the others at that statement, a little shiver running down the back of his neck.

“That’s not good,” says Sypha, biting her lip.

“No,” says Alucard, sliding his hand into hers and giving it a squeeze. “Still, this is the best lead we have so far. Let’s see what else we can see down here before it gets too dark outside. I’d rather not be here when the clocks strike midnight…”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> halfway thru and finally some element of the title becomes relevant lol. I'm big into medieval church history so castlevania is sort of half delightful and half horrifying to me because there's so muCH INACCURACY... but at the same time i love it a lot. the portrayal of the church in the series is really interesting and I hope they get into it more in season three! 
> 
> also, well-made medieval reliquaries are genuinely some of the most beautiful (if a little macabre) objects around - I visited Rome earlier this year as part of my degree and had the pleasure of seeing some truly gorgeous ones. it's true that the relics contained within were often fakes - it's less of a problem now as we have the technology to establish the provenance of many relics much better than we did in the past, but in the middle ages there was a ROARING trade in fake relics. or, technically, a trade in reliquaries - you can't actually buy and sell the relics themselves because it's considered improper to buy and sell bits of saints, so people TECHNICALLY buy the box only, and then the relic is included as a gift, haha.
> 
> anyway thats enough history for now, lol! thank u all so much for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter and the Slightly More Plotty But Still Mostly Shippy content that is to come! thank you from the bottom of my frosty little heart to all , commenters, kudosers, and readers - you guys keep me motivated! u are all stars <3


	11. Chapter 11

Eventually, Trevor’s persistent grumbling manages to drive Sypha and Alucard out of the library, but it takes an absurd amount of time. Neither of them seems especially compelled by his complaints of boredom, hunger, and one slightly holey sock.

“You’re going to have to learn to darn one day,” says Sypha, not taking her eyes off the book she’s currently perusing, “so why don’t you go and do that instead of pestering me?”

 

Trevor mopes over to Alucard, who seems to have been distracted from his investigations by an especially beautifully decorated bestiary. “Look,” he says, motioning Trevor to sit next to him, “the illuminations in here are stunning. Look at that manticore! And the pigments are wonderful, too, so rich in colour…” he flips through several pages, visibly enraptured by the shimmering gold leaf and swirling marginalia. “Beautiful work. Your ancestors may have dedicated their lives to slaughtering my kind, but I’ll give them this – they had excellent taste in books.”

“Yeah, it’s alright,” says Trevor, with a shrug.

Alucard chuckles. “Not your speed, hmm?”

“I’m bored. This place is boring. I want to kick something.”

“Well, perhaps if you go and actually explore this place a bit, you might find another whip to amuse yourself with?”

“You’re just saying that because you want me to fuck off and actually go do something to help you guys work out what the thing down here is, aren’t you?”

“… maybe.”

 

Trevor lopes around solo for a bit, inspecting some very dusty books with what he hopes is a thoughtful expression. Eventually he heads back to Sypha, who rolls her eyes, but lets him rest his head in her lap while she reads. She runs her free hand through his hair and hums under her breath, and for a while Trevor is content to doze.

“Don’t even see why my ancestors would have a relic lying around,” he says. “I mean, we haven’t exactly got on great with the church, in my experience.”

Sypha strokes his cheek. “Mmm. Perhaps they found it useful in the fight against monsters of some sort? Demons, perhaps? Alucard didn’t seem bothered by it, so maybe not vampires… although I suppose it being a fake might have something to do with that. Or him being half-human.” She frowns. “I don’t know.”

“I guess holy water does work pretty well against demons. Maybe relics are the same?”

“Maybe,” says Sypha. She puts her book aside for a moment and leans down to kiss his head. “Are you alright being here?”

“No. I’m bored and I’m hungry.”

She laughs at his grumpy little pout. “I know, I know. I mean, more… well, this place was your family’s. I hope it isn’t too… I don’t know. That it isn’t too much, I guess.”

Trevor shrugs, not an easy move in his current position. “Dunno. I was never let down here much as a kid, it’s not like I have heaps of memories of the place. The house is worse, but that’s pretty much all under the snow now, so… no. It’s not too bad.”

Sypha kisses his forehead again, smoothing his hair out of his eyes. “Good. Let me know if that changes, hmm?”

 

She picks up her book again, and resumes gently stroking Trevor’s head. He lets himself drift back into a sort of half-sleep for a while, lulled by the gentle sounds of her breathing, of the turning of the pages and the occasional soft footfall as Alucard drifts through the shelves nearby. He gets antsy again after not too long, though, and eventually his continued complaints persuade Sypha and Alucard to put their books away and leave the library.

 

“You do realise,” says Alucard, as they make their way back into the castle and pull closed the vast double doors against the cold, “that we’re going to have to go back there very soon? Tomorrow morning, if not later tonight.”

Trevor groans. “But it’s so boring in there.”

“Perhaps you would find it less boring if you used your time actually doing something useful, instead of just following Sypha and I around like a lost puppy and complaining that you’re hungry.”

“Look, I’ve spent enough time in that place. We were in there for _ages_ before we managed to get the castle over here so we could fight your dad. And now we’re in there again! I’m over it. Can’t you just bring Sypha with you when you go back?”

Alucard shakes his head. “No. I need you, in particular. It seems that-”

 

“Aww,” says Sypha, hopping up on her tiptoes to pinch Alucard’s cheek, “he wants you all to himself, Trevor!”

“No I don’t.”

“You do!” Sypha loops her arm around Alucard’s waist with a conspiratorial little smile. “I can’t say I blame you. Now that he doesn’t smell like a big wet dog, he’s pretty handsome, huh?”

“Is he?”

“Oh, come on, you were thinking it too, weren’t you?”

Alucard smirks. “Alright, yes. Scraping the layer of dirt off the top of our dear friend seems to have revealed some of his… less unpleasant features.”

 

“Wait, what?” says Trevor, who always feels vaguely suspicious of compliments directed at him by a smirking Alucard. They tend to have a sting in the tail.

“However,” Alucard continues, “that’s not why I want him in the library. I don’t know if either of you noticed, but none of those blasted traps seemed to be giving me issues while Trevor was down there. I suspect that his Belmont blood means that-”

“Suuuure,” says Sypha, wiggling her eyebrows. “You want him there totally definitely to keep you safe from traps and not even a little bit because you want to have him all to yourself. What did you call that business you two were up to earlier again? _Fighting_?”

“Why on earth would that require me to be alone with him? You’re always more than welcome to join in, Sypha dear.”

Sypha cackles. “Now that I like the sound of.”

 

“Wait,” says Trevor, as two pairs of eyes swivel round to fix him with matching smirks. “Hang on, I don’t want to fight both of you.”

“Why ever not?” says Sypha, wide-eyed in counterfeit shock.

“Oh come on, you know that’s not fair! Two against one-”

“I don’t know, Trevor,” she says, eyes gleaming, “you look like you could take it. Don’t you think, Alucard?”

“Oh, I completely agree,” says Alucard, with a smile that’s all fang. It’s frankly more appealing than it has any right to be. “Unless you don’t think you’re up to the challenge, Belmont…?”

 

They both giggle, arms linked, and Trevor sighs. “The pair of you are bastards.”

The pair share another of their inscrutable glances, the sort that always make Trevor feel vaguely as though he’s missed a solid half of whatever conversation is actually happening. “You love us, though,” says Sypha, grinning up at him.

Trevor hums sceptically. “I mean, do I?”

“Of course! That’s why you’re still here.”

“I’m still here because we’re fucking snowed in.”

“But also because you love us-”

“But mostly because we’re snowed in-”

“Oho, so you admit-”

 

“Actually, that snow is probably worth our attention,” says Alucard, drifting across the room to frown out of one of the many windows. That’s another thing about this castle; there’s so much glass. Huge panes of it, everywhere. It’s more glass than Trevor has ever seen in one place, cathedrals included; it must have cost Dracula a fortune.

“Yeah?” says Trevor.

Alucard nods, slowly. “It’s started up again, look. If it gets much deeper, we’re really going to have trouble getting in and out to the library, let alone anywhere else.

“Oh no,” deadpans Sypha, rolling her eyes, “we are going to be all snowed in to this beautiful huge castle full of soft warm beds and delicious food and the biggest bath I have ever seen… oh no… that sounds awful and not at all good…”

“Point taken,” says Alucard, with a little laugh. “The castle is not an unpleasant place to be trapped, I suppose. And the company could certainly be worse. Still, it’s not exactly an ideal situation. Apart from anything else, that roof I put on the library isn’t going to hold up much longer under the weight of all this snow.”

Trevor sidles over to the window to join him, Sypha at his side. “You’re probably right. It’s weird, really, I never remember snow this bad from when I was a kid.”

“Ah. I feared that you might say that. You see, the snow has been building since…” he frowns. “Well. Since about the same time that the wailing started. I feel like it’s not unreasonable to at least consider whether or not the two are related in some way.”

Sypha chews her lip. “Oh, that’s not good. That would be really very not good indeed. If whatever it is has physical form, and it can alter the weather…”

“Perhaps it’s nothing,” says Alucard, with a sigh, “but I suspect it’s worth considering the possibility, at least. We should comb through the libraries here in the castle and see if we can find anything which might help us. I suggest that we begin by finding out what we can about Saint Walpurga-”

 

Trevor groans. “More libraries? Seriously?! Urgh. Why can’t we just go and punch stuff like normal people do?”

“We need to work out what this thing is before we try to deal with it,” says Sypha, levelly. “Once we know what we’re up against, we can go in there and you’ll probably have a chance at a nice big fight, alright?”

“I guess,” grumbles Trevor.

“If the thought of spending more time today amongst books gives you a headache, I’m sure I can find something else to occupy your time,” says Alucard. “There’s still some stew left over, and there are some straw dummies down in one of the basements if you want to train or something-”

Trevor perks up a little at the prospect of violence. “Alright, I’m listening, I’m listening. Training and food certainly sounds better than another fucking library.”

“I suspected you might like the sound of that,” says Alucard, with an indulgent smile.

“If you get all sweaty and horrible we’re going to throw you in the bath again, though,” says Sypha, pointing a warning finger at Trevor.

He shrugs. “Yeah, well. It wasn’t so bad. Maybe I wouldn’t mind that too much.”

Sypha looks delighted at this statement. “Oh good! Now you are going to smell of roses all of the time, and alcohol none of it!”

“I don’t know about that, I mean, you can still drink in the bath, right?”

Sypha sighs.

“Talking of which,” says Trevor, having just had possibly the best thought he’s had all week, “your dad didn’t happen to have a wine cellar or something around here, did he, Alucard?”

 

Alucard raises an eyebrow. “You want to steal alcohol from my dead father?”

“Well when you say it like that it sounds bad, but… yeah, I guess. Pretty much.”

Alucard stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head in disbelief. “I… you know what, fine. If it will keep you happy, there’s some barrels of mead in the cellar below the kitchen. I’m not letting you at the wine, though. It’s worth too much for chugging.”

Trevor shrugs. “Mead is fine by me. I can never tell the difference between all those fancy wines, anyway.”

Alucard pinches the bridge of his nose, a pained expression on his face. “You’re hurting me, Trevor. You’re literally killing me, here.”

Trevor claps him heartily on the shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear!”

Alucard leans into the touch with a defeated little sigh. “I hate you.”

“I hate you too.”

 

They grin at each other for another moment, and then Alucard turns to Sypha, clapping his hands sharply together and frowning. “Well! Enough time wasting. We had better begin in the main library, after which there are several smaller ones which I think might bear fruit…”

He stalks off, ostensibly talking to Sypha but in reality mostly muttering to himself.

Trevor raises an eyebrow, and Sypha shrugs. “He’s stressed,” she says. “Now, will you behave on your own?”

“When have I ever not behaved myself?”

Sypha gives him A Look.

“… yeah, alright, alright. I’ll be good.”

“Good!” Sypha hops up onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and gives his hands a squeeze, smiling fondly. “We’ll come find you when we’re done, ok?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter, another threesome joke that goes flying over trevor's head. and you know what? thats valid and i love him for it.
> 
> i've been a little busy the past couple days with cosplay stuff (I'm making alucard because uhhhh i love to torture myself wearing wigs that will instantly tangle if i so much as look at them) but I have some free time tomorrow so hopefully i'll bash out a few thousand words and get back on track then!! 
> 
> thank u as always to everyone who leaves comments and kudos, u guys feed and sustain my dark arcane powers so god bless you for that, and i will hopefully have more tasty updates for u soon! maybe even updates with... *wiggles eyebrows* kisses..... :3ccc


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i mean, not that this whole fic hasn't been basically one big innuendo so far, but heads up that this chapter contains some Very Suggestive Themes

It’s not that Trevor is _intentionally_ snooping. He didn’t set out to snoop. It just sort of… turned out that way. And then it all goes a bit pear-shaped, because snooping being what it is, you’re bound to end up seeing something you shouldn’t have.

                                                 

To backtrack; the afternoon up until this point had passed pleasantly enough. Trevor spent most of it traipsing around the lower levels of the castle in a quest to locate the wine cellars. Anywhere that he’s specifically been told not to go sounds like it’s worth checking out – or that’s his logic, anyhow. He comes up sadly blank, although there is indeed mead below the kitchen, as promised, which cheers him up to no end. It’s been ages since he’s had a drink, must be at least… well, probably about two days. Which, as far as Trevor is concerned, is _practically_ two months. Two years. Two decades, even. Tankard of mead in hand, he manages to find a couple of promising doors that seem like they might lead toward a good well-stocked wine cellar, but they’re all locked and he feels like it might be taking things a tad too far to go around breaking doors down. Alucard seems to have warmed up to him, he’ll admit that, but it’s probably better not to start trashing his house. Even if Alucard has kind of left the place in a tip… hmm.

 

Trevor stares longingly at the old oak door. No. He’d better not. He lopes away sadly, and goes back to the kitchens to help himself to more mead. By the time he makes it to the training room he’s pleasantly buzzed but definitely not drunk, which is a stage of alcohol consumption he’s rarely been able to appreciate properly until recently. Before he met Sypha it was mostly just a case of slamming back cheap beer until he passed out somewhere relatively soft. It’s not exactly that he hasn’t done that since, but he’s done it less, that’s for sure. Somehow even when she’s not around her disapproving little face gets into his mind and makes him put the tankard down before he starts feeling sick. It’s witchcraft, that, proper witchcraft – the kind that worms its way into your head and never leaves. Well, it’s that or it’s that having something worth living for makes you want to drink yourself into oblivion somewhat less frequently… but Trevor’s money is on the witchcraft.

 

So he spends a pleasant hour or so beating the shit out of straw dummies, and amuses himself for a while by trying to whipcrack their heads off from the far side of the room. He tries pretending that one of them is Alucard, but then he feels bad when he manages to hit it, and ends up – of all the ridiculous things to do because it’s a _straw fucking dummy for god’s sake_ \- apologising while he’s wedging its head back on. Urgh. Can’t a man nurse a cherished hatred in peace any more? Evidently not. Sypha has clearly got to him with her ‘feelings’ and her ‘talking about emotions’ and all that crap. That being said - crazy though it may seem – Trevor has been discovering over the past few months that life actually improves in general when you stop bottling up all your feelings forever and just hoping they’re going to go away and/or you might just die before you have to deal with them. Who’d have guessed?

 

Eventually - once he’s had enough of pissing around downstairs - Trevor decides to go explore the castle a bit, which is what brings us to the whole snooping business. In fairness, it really wasn’t deliberate. He heard the mysterious music before the voices, and in a moment of total disregard for common-sense behaviour in a vampires’ castle, he had followed it. He padded through several plushly-carpeted corridors before he finally reached the source; a somewhat out-of-the-way little room tucked away at the far side of the castle, near the base of one of the turrets. The door was ajar, light spilling out into the corridor, and the music with it. He crept closer, half expecting to be jumped by some kind of… evil vampire castle cursed music-box spirit. Or something. But instead he heard voices; Sypha’s, first, soft but bright, and then Alucard’s, slightly hesitant. Which, reasonably, is probably the point at which he should have left, or announced his presence, or at least not stood and listened without making a noise. But he waited for a moment too long, and then he was listening to the conversation and didn’t want to butt in, and then… ok so maybe he is intentionally snooping. Just a bit. But it was an _accident_ , that’s the important thing.

 

Either way, he’s stood in the hallway listening, wondering if he can creep off without being heard, or walk in without looking like he’s been listening at the door (which, alright, he _has_ , but only by mistake) as Sypha coos over what must be the device making the music. He can see the edge of it through the door; a sort of side-table with a strange brass horn perched on top and some kind of… spinning wheel? He can’t make head nor tail of it, but the music is charming. Soft. A little waltz-y. It doesn’t look like any kind of instrument Trevor has ever seen, that’s for sure. For one thing, it seems to be playing on its own, without any need for human interference. Huh. Clever.

“And it can play just _anything_?” she murmurs, clearly enraptured.

Trevor can hear the smile in Alucard’s voice as he responds. “Anything I have the music for. See, on these discs, here…”

Sypha claps her hands. “Oh, how wonderful! And you have so many!”

“Not as many as I would like. They were my mother’s, mostly, though how exactly she came by them I’m not sure. I suspect she dug them out of one of the attics – there are a great many such oddities to be found in the castle in the less well-used rooms, if one cares to look for such things.”

“How curious. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, it’s remarkable…”

 

There’s a moment of silence, and Trevor is just about to announce his presence when Sypha drifts into view in front of the open door, followed closely by Alucard, his hand outstretched. “Do you dance at all?” he asks, voice low.

Trevor can see her blush from half a corridor away, as she casts her eyes down, her tone almost shy. “Do I… well. I suppose, if the right person asks me…”

Alucard grins a grin with just a fraction too many teeth not to be roguish, then makes a sweeping bow, holding out his hand. “In that case - will you dance with me, Miss Belnades?”

“Oh Mr Tepes,” she giggles, taking his outstretched hand in hers, “how very forward of you.”

 

At which point, of course, the consequences of being noticed lurking around in the corridor jump from ‘vaguely awkward’ to ‘definitely creepy’, and Trevor thinks, ah, oh shit, he really should have broken into the wine cellar while he had a chance. Because if he’d done that, then right now he would be downstairs in amongst the fine oak barrels getting rascally drunk and in general enjoying himself immensely, rather than up here, sweating slightly and trying to work out if he can back away down the corridor before he gets spotted interrupting… whatever those two are up to.

 

Which is… well, it’s dancing, for a given value of dancing. But it mostly looks like an excuse to stand very close to each other, swaying ever so slightly to the music.

 

“This is nice,” says Sypha, resting her head against Alucard’s chest.

“Mmm.”

“We missed you. _I_ missed you,” she says, softly. “You know that, don’t you?”

He exhales deeply, a long, contented sigh that sounds like the release of a long-held breath. “I didn’t, for a while.”

She glances up at him, gaze soft. “But you do now?”

“But I do now,” he agrees, as they shift slowly in time with the music. “Yeah. I do.”

 

He spins Sypha around under his arm, and she laughs.

“Here, let me have a go,” she says, hopping up onto her tiptoes and trying valiantly to spin Alucard in turn.

He rolls his eyes, having to crouch awkwardly so that she can turn him round. “You’re mussing my hair,” he grumbles, as the sleeve of her dress catches the top of his head.

“So vain! This wouldn’t be a problem if you just chopped it all off like me.”

Alucard gives an exaggerated shudder, pulling Sypha back toward him. “Certainly not. I wouldn’t suit it at all.”

“It’s worked fine for me,” she says, flipping her hair and beaming up at him. “Look! So cute, and so practical. It dries so much quicker after I’ve washed it, too.”

“Yes but that’s- it’s different for you.”

“How?”

He raises her hand to his lips, and kisses it softly. “You, Miss Belnades, would look beautiful even if you shaved all your hair off entirely, and wore only potato sacks from here on out.”

She giggles, letting him spin her around and pull her close again. “You are an incorrigible flirt and a dreadful flatterer! Almost as bad as me, really.”

He raises an eyebrow at that.

“… oh, alright, maybe not as bad as me. Still.”

 

They sway for a moment in silence. “It’s not flattery if it’s true, though, is it?” says Alucard, softly.

“Perhaps not. It’s still _flirting_ though.”

Alucard goes pink. “I… uh, that is…”

Sypha laughs, and raises her hand to cup his cheek gently. “Are you going to tell me you aren’t flirting? Look at you! Bold as anything until somebody calls you out on what you’re up to, hmm?”

Alucard mumbles something Trevor can’t quite catch, flushed all across his cheekbones and down his throat.

Sypha brings her other hand up to tangle in his hair, and plants a kiss at the base of his jaw, right where it meets his neck.

 

Alucard makes a startled little groaning noise and Trevor realises, rather abruptly, that he’s not actually sure who he’s jealous of in this situation. Which is… huh. Huh.

 

“Just to be clear,” says Sypha, punctuating her words with little kisses along Alucard’s jawline, “I’m flirting with you, too.”

“Ah,” says Alucard, looking rather dazed.

“Can I kiss you?” She hovers back a little, their mouths almost but not quite touching, her hands coiled in his hair.

Alucard looks as though he’s just been kicked in the head by a horse, which, honestly, is a pretty fair response to Sypha being that close. “Can… you…” he murmurs, bringing a hand up to touch her cheek in obvious disbelief. Which is stupid, because it’s not as though he isn’t ridiculously attractive himself.

“Can I kiss y-” she begins, but Alucard leans in and cuts her off, pressing his lips to hers with a contented little sigh.

After a moment he leans back, still a little flushed, and grins one of his smugger grins. “Yes. You can.”

Sypha laughs. “God you complete…” she shoves him back against the wall with an audible _thud_ , “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

She doesn’t give Alucard a chance to respond to that, just grabs his hair and pulls him down for another kiss, this one significantly rougher than the first.

 

They’re both panting slightly when she pulls back, eyes gleaming. Alucard lets her guide him back toward the green armchair next to strange device that’s still softly playing music. He sits down abruptly, his eyes wide and his pupils completely blown. She wastes no time in scrambling into his lap, pressing a fervent string of kisses along his jaw and down his neck.

“Can I-” he begins, reaching toward her and then hesitating, briefly.

“Yes,” says Sypha, decisively, tugging the lacing on her dress loose and shoving the top down to her waist. “Yes, you can.” She grabs one of his hands and pulls it to her chest.

He grins, and leans in for another kiss.

 

Trevor is suddenly aware that a) he’s standing there just watching this and he should definitely have left, like, several minutes ago – and b) that, that being said, this is probably a really good time to back away quietly and not be noticed because Sypha and Alucard are… well. Very distracted.

 

So he takes a deep breath, and carefully, quietly, makes his way back along the corridor and down towards the kitchens. His stomach feels all twisted up and strange, and he can’t quite pinpoint what emotion he’s feeling about this whole thing but it’s a strong one, that’s for sure. He wants to go back upstairs and- and what? Interrupt? Stop them? Join in? He feels himself flushing at that, all wanting and needing and hot, warm shame in the pit of his stomach. As if he’d be fucking invited. They’d sooner boot him out into the snow, he’s sure. Stupid beautiful people with their stupid beautiful faces being all… all perfect for each other and kissing and… urgh. He should have known this would happen when Sypha had started talking about wanting to come back and see Alucard. He sighs, and tries very hard not to think about whatever the fuck they’re probably getting up to upstairs. And it’s… god. That’s. It’s a lot.

 

And then he thinks, well, fuck it, maybe he _should_ bash a door or two in and find himself a wine cellar. Because he really, really needs a strong fucking drink right about now.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh so.... that........... happened?? this chapter sort of got away with me i dunno what to say ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> i promise that one day in the not too distant future trevor will realise that he Is Actually Very Much Invited, it will happen, i will not torture this poor sad man forever
> 
> as ever big love to people who leave kudos and comments, and also to my cat who bit me a lot while i was trying to write this and doesn't deserve my affections but has them anyway


	13. Chapter 13

Trevor wakes up in the dark with a splitting headache and the world’s driest mouth (which is all pretty normal), and with a concerned looking Alucard looming over him holding a candle (which is new).

“… hwa?” he manages as his eyes flicker open, blinking at the sudden proximity of the light.

The look of concern morphs seamlessly into a look of annoyance. “Found him!” yells Alucard, over his shoulder.

Distantly, Trevor hears what sounds like Sypha yelling something back.

“What? No, he’s fine,” shouts Alucard; “Go grab some water from the kitchen, I’ll haul him out of here.”

He sighs, and shakes his head at Trevor. “I’m pretty sure that I specifically asked you to stay out of the wine cellar.”

Trevor winces. “Can you… keep it down a bit?”

“I don’t know. Can you… keep out of my wine cellar?”

Trevor frowns. “But ‘s a good wine cellar.”

Alucard sighs. “I know. That’s why we don’t chug the contents of it. And we certainly don’t drink directly from the bottle. This is a good vintage! You are a heathen.”

Trevor shrugs. He’s not wrong, after all.

Alucard sighs. “You’re lucky you didn’t crack into one of the blood barrels, actually. Both because I would be furious and because I imagine it wouldn’t be an entirely pleasant drinking experience for you.”

“You keep _blood_ in your _wine cellar_?”

“Well, it’s all for drinking. I don’t see why it would need to be anywhere else. Mind you, I think my father’s Generals drank their way through most of it. They made quite a dent in the wine, as well, for that matter. Bastards.”

 

“Mmph,” says Trevor, glumly, hauling himself into a seated position with his back to a barrel. “Oh, ow, shit, I slept on my arm and it’s gone to sleep. Shit! God that…” he stretches his arm out with a sad little whine. “Ow!”

Alucard stares levelly at him. “I’m trying really hard to feel sympathetic, Belmont.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Hmm.” Alucard gives him a speculative once-over. “Well, it’s your own stupid fault and you’ve managed to drink a whole bottle of nice Italian red, but on the other hand,” he says, expression softening slightly as he takes in Trevor’s slumped-over form, “I suppose that you haven’t drunk any of the really good stuff and you _do_ look very sorry for yourself, so… oh, I don’t know. Let’s just say I’m in a generous mood.”

“Uh-huh?” says Trevor, raising an eyebrow as he properly takes in Alucard’s appearance for the first time. The guy is a hot fucking mess. His normally picture-perfect hair is a virtual bird’s nest, and there’s a tear in the fine cotton of his shirt. It looks like some of the buttons have been popped clean off, in fact. And… Trevor squints slightly in the half-dark. Yeah, that’s definitely a hickey coming up on his collar bone. No wonder he’s in a generous mood.

Alucard snorts. “Well, it’s either that or your puppy dog eyes have become more effective since you last tried them on me.”

Actually, now he’s looking, there’s definitely a whole bunch of hickeys trailing off under his shirt. Trevor’s stomach does a weird flipping thing which he can’t entirely attribute to the wine. He thinks he’s mad about it, for a second, only… only he’s not. He’s a little sad. But also, shit, Alucard looks pretty happy and content with himself right now - which is definitely a marked improvement from his usual sad-eyed moping. Also, his hair is kind of hilarious all messed up.

 

Alucard snaps his fingers in front of Trevor’s nose. “Belmont? Anything going on in there?”

“Hmm?”

“You went a bit glassy-eyed for a second. Do you need a hand getting up?”

Trevor doesn’t, not really, but he lets Alucard haul him upright anyway. “I was just thinking about how dumb your hair looks,” he says, by way of explanation.

“What are you-” Alucard freezes, eyes wide. “Oh no. Oh no, is it tangled?”

He looks so genuinely stricken that Trevor can’t quite bring himself to laugh. “It… yeah, it’s a little tangled, buddy.”

Alucard groans in abject despair. “Oh, this is awful. I get such terrible split ends if I let it tangle, I _knew_ I should have tied it up but I- hey, don’t laugh! This is very serious!”

 

Trevor tries gallantly not to laugh, and fails miserably.

Alucard fixes him with a reproving glare. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“Trevor,” says Alucard, with a longsuffering sigh, “the fact that you have the audacity to mock, given your current position, is frankly astonishing.”

“I’m always ready to mock you,” says Trevor, patting him companionably on the shoulder. “It’s one of my favourite past-times, actually.”

“You’re in my wine cellar!” says Alucard, pointing an accusatory finger at Trevor’s chest until he backs up into the nearest cask. “You’re drinking my wine! And I’ve let you get away with it, why would you…” he shakes his head. “I’ve let a fucking Belmont into the castle, and he’s drinking his way through the good vintages and insulting my hair and I’m _letting him get away with it_. Good lord. What have I become?”

“… a nicer person?” ventures Trevor.

Alucard narrows his eyes, and leans in, eyes gleaming. “I ought to eat you alive for even having dared to approach my house, you bastard. How do you feel about _that_ , hmm?”

 

The truthful answer is ‘slightly hard, actually’, but Trevor figures that that’s probably something better kept to himself. So instead he says, “Like you’re full of shit.”

“Urgh,” says Alucard, hooking Trevor’s arm around his shoulders with a sigh. “You’re right, you’re right, I’m not even that mad at you. I’m a sham. I’m a disgrace to my ancestors.”

“Hey, me too!” says Trevor, leaning into Alucard’s grip with a little more force than is strictly necessary. He holds his hand up for a hi-five.

Alucard leaves him hanging with a disdainful sniff, and rolls his eyes. “Don’t get too chummy with me. I could still decide to flay you alive and post you up on a big stick outside the front gate.”

“No you couldn’t. Sypha would never allow it.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t tell her.”

“I think she’d notice if my flayed corpse turned up on a stick outside your house. Anyway, you’d never catch me.”

“I absolutely would.”

“What if I impaled you first? Pre-emptive strike?”

Alucard visibly bristles at that. “Impaling is in my _blood_ , Belmont. I’d like to see you fucking try.”

“Ah, but that’s just it,” says Trevor, gamely; “you’d never see me coming.”

 

They’re still arguing about the logistics of the matter when they reach the kitchen.

Sypha sighs as Alucard drops Trevor onto one of the little wooden stools at the long trestle table. She’s wearing the fucking nightgown again because, hey, of course she is. Trevor decides that that nightgown might actually only exist specifically to torture him, personally.

 

“Boys,” she says, shaking her head at them both, “no fighting please. And no impaling! Honestly, the pair of you…” She drifts over to Trevor and hands him a mug of water. “Are you feeling alright?”

He shrugs. His head has felt better, he’s pretty sure, but it’s also definitely felt worse. He’d drunk enough that it had seemed like a good idea to have a bit of a cry and then take a slightly impromptu nap on the cold stone floor, but not enough to properly _pass out_. That’s an important distinction. So he says, “Yeah, I’m alright. My arm’s still a bit dead, though.”

Sypha raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I slept on it.”

“Wait, you slept in the wine cellar?”

“… yeah.”

 

“I found him taking a kip up against one of my casks,” says Alucard, pursing his lips in disapproval. “Despite the abundance of perfectly comfortable beds, and the fact that I specifically told him not to go in there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and find myself a hairbrush…”

Sypha catches his hand as he stalks past her, and lets it go only with reluctance, keeping the tips of her fingers against his and leaning back dramatically. “Hurry back! We will miss you.”

Alucard shakes his head, but there’s warmth behind his eyes, and a certain lightness in his step as he leaves that gives away his fondness for her.

 

She slumps back down onto her stool when he’s gone, resting her elbows on the table and fixing Trevor with a long, thoughtful stare. “Are you sure you’re good? You just seem a little… I don’t know. Glum.”

“Me? Nah, I’m great. Never been better.”

“Hmmm.” She narrows her eyes, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to dig further, but after a second of careful observation she just says, “Drink your water.”

Trevor takes a long draught of water (which, in his opinion, isn’t a hearty enough drink by half, but Sypha is very keen on it), and frowns. “Do you know what time it is? I went into the cellar mid-afternoon, and I was only gonna lie down for half an hour, but I, uh…” he motions vaguely at her nightdress, “Well, I get the feeling it was… maybe a bit longer than that.”

Sypha laughs. “It’s nearly eleven at night - and honestly, Trevor Belmont, you are _lying_ to yourself if you think you’ve ever lain down for a half hour nap and actually got up within the next… oh, four hours? Five?”

“It’s just so comfy, though,” pouts Trevor, “You know, once you’re down and all snuggled up, I mean… might as well catch some proper sleep, right?”

“The floor of Alucard’s wine cellar was that cosy, huh?”

“Ah, well, you know… anywhere is cosy once I’ve got a drink or two in me.”

 

Sypha sighs, brow furrowed. “Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking all on your own like that. At least if we’re around somebody can put you to bed…”

Trevor shrugs. “Figured you two probably have better things to do than babysit me.” He sticks his face back into his mug of water and drinks deeply, hoping that the flush he can feel rising to his cheeks isn’t visible from where Sypha’s sat, over the table from him.

“Trevor, we’re not babysitting you. We’re your friends, and when you go off and get drunk and pass out in cellars-”

“Ok, I didn’t _pass out_ , I took a nap, that’s a completely different-”

“How is it different!? Trevor! When you do things like that we worry about you. And we missed your company, of course,” she says, leaning over the table to clasp Trevor’s hands, gaze utterly sincere.

He stares down at their linked hands and manages to grunt out a relatively unaffected, “Yeah?” It’s about the best he could hope for, with her smiling at him like that. God, he’s such an idiot. Keep it cool, Belmont. She’s just being friendly.

“I always miss you when you’re not around, silly.” She brushes her thumb gently over the scarred backs of his knuckles. “You do know that, don’t you?”

 

Trevor hates the way his heart speeds up when she says that.

 

Sypha gives his hands a gentle squeeze when he doesn’t respond. “No? Well, it’s true, whether you know it or not. So there.” She sticks her tongue out, and grins.

He manages a watery smile. “Thanks.”

“So!” she says, folding her hands under her chin, “What have you been up to today, other than draining Alucard’s cellars?”

Trevor makes a vague non-committal noise. “Oh, you know, the usual. Drank some mead. Punched some straw dummies. Hit some other straw dummies with my whip.”

“Ah, I see. And were you struck by any particular revelations about the nature of our library-dwelling menace?”

He shrugs. “Not really. But… I guess I might be marginally better at fighting it, now, since I did some training?”

“True, true.”

He perks up slightly. “And hey, I’ve strengthened my liver through trial by fancy wine.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” says Sypha, shaking her head fondly. She pauses for a long moment, and then Trevor feels her foot nudge his shin under the table. “This is where you’re supposed to ask me about _my_ day, you know.”

 

The trouble, of course, is that Trevor already knows far more about Sypha’s day than he really wants to. He doesn’t think he has the capacity to sit here and nod while she tells him that her and Alucard have… what? Been looking at books all day? He knows that’s not true. Or, god, worse – she might tell him what actually happened, and he’s going to have to sit here and try to pretend that he’s not the most pathetic mixture of sad and horny and then she’s going to-

 

Sypha giggles. “Trevor, you can’t just zone out to avoid asking other people about their days. You really find libraries that boring, huh? Even just hearing about them?”

“Uh… yeah. Yup,” says Trevor, fervently thanking every single one of his lucky stars that she’s read him zoning out as disinterest rather than blatant fucking panic, “Yeah, they just send me right off to sleep. Can’t be having with the places. They’re always so… quiet. And full of books. You know?”

“That is utterly ridiculous. Urgh. You’re so cute. We really did miss you today- hey, we missed Trevor, didn’t we, darling?” The last part is directed toward Alucard, who is slinking back into the room looking vaguely sheepish, with his hair neatened out and – hilariously – a new shirt with a much higher collar. As if Trevor hasn’t already clocked all the bite marks.

 

Alucard blinks. “Didn’t we what?”

“I was just telling Trevor that we missed his company this afternoon. You know, while he was down here stealing all your wine and we were off upstairs keeping ourselves busy. ” Trevor has to give her this; she looks innocent as anything when she says that - but he knows her too well to think she’s doing anything other than enjoying making Alucard squirm. Which is hilarious and normally he’d be all for it, but it’s having the side-effect of also making him squirm because. Well. He has a pretty good idea of what exactly they were keeping themselves busy with upstairs and it’s… probably not something he should be thinking so hard about while other people are around.

“I… see,” says Alucard, giving a non-committal hum, avoiding eye-contact entirely, and proceeding to take several large gulps of water directly from the jug on the long oak table. “Mm. Yes. So we did.”

“Look,” says Trevor, gruffly, “It’s fine. You were busy. I would only have got in the way-”

“Honestly, you wouldn’t have,” says Sypha, smiling serenely, “we didn’t get a lot done. We got _super_ distracted. Didn’t we, Alucard?”

“We- oh!” says Alucard, his hand flying up to adjust the collar of his shirt, cheeks pink, “Oh, uh- we… yes. Sure. Mm-hmm.” He takes another large swig from the water jug, eyes bulging.

 

Sypha yawns, reaching up both hands in the air and arching her back with catlike grace. “Well, I think I’m going to call it a night before the wailing in the library starts up again. It’s been a long day; I’m off to bed.” She pauses on her way out, leaning against the doorframe with a gleam in her eye. “Anyone who wants to join me is more than welcome, of course.”

 

And then she leaves.

 

“It’s- it’s _my_ bed,” says Alucard, hoarsely, calling after Sypha’s disappearing form as she saunters off down the corridor, “you can’t invite me to my own bed, that’s not… it doesn’t work like that…”

If Sypha hears, she doesn’t reply.

Trevor claps Alucard on the shoulder. “Well, she just did.”

“I know, but…” Alucard drops his head into his hands and sighs deeply. “God. Oh my god. She’s so much, sometimes. All of the time, actually.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“She’s brilliant,” says Alucard, fervently, “She’s brilliant, and she has no grasp of etiquette or decorum or propriety or- I mean, you can’t invite somebody to their own-” He straightens himself up and shakes his head, like a dog trying to clear its ears of water. Then he turns to Trevor. “Are you coming?”

“Huh?”

“Well, you heard the lady, Belmont. It’s bed-time, apparently.” Alucard holds his hand out, gaze expectant.

 

Trevor clears his throat awkwardly. Jeez. For a guy as smart as he can sometimes be, Alucard sure isn’t great at picking up on subtleties. “Yeah, I uh… I think that was an invite for you, specifically.”

Alucard frowns. “I’m pretty sure it was an invite for both of us, actually.”

Trevor suddenly becomes very interested in staring at his water mug.

“I mean, we all need to… to sleep,” says Alucard, after the silence stretches on a moment too long. “Right?” (He sounds vaguely uncertain of this fact, possibly because as far as Trevor can tell he actually doesn’t _need_ to sleep all that much, especially after his year-long snooze under Gresit.)

 

“You know,” says Trevor - who really has very little interest in spelling out to Alucard the exact reasons why Sypha is clearly expecting one of them and not the other – “I actually just had a really good nap, so I’m gonna just… just kick it down here for a bit.”

“Oh,” says Alucard, “Right, well, um. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He looks vaguely embarrassed, for some reason. Maybe he’s finally caught on to what Sypha was hinting at.

“’S fine,” says Trevor, with a slightly forced smile. “Goodnight.”

 

Alucard hovers for a moment longer by the door, and for a moment Trevor thinks he’s going to say something, but instead he just nods softly, and mumbles out a hasty, “Goodnight,” before scurrying off upstairs.

 

Ah well, thinks Trevor, shaking his head as Alucard disappears off round the corner and out of sight, it’s just like his mother used to say; the beautiful ones are always a bit slow on the uptake.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he'll figure it out eventually lmao
> 
> thanks for all ur lovely comments and delicious kudos!! i am almost caught up to par on nano!!!! I'm at about 33,000 words rn, which is a bit less words than are here because some stuff gets pared down when i do a little edit before publishing :)
> 
> thank u for staying with me as i white-knuckle through nano trying to create something that makes at least some vague kind of sense, it's been a wild ride for me so far lol


	14. Chapter 14

It might not exactly have been the whole story with regards to why he hadn’t gone to bed, but Trevor certainly wasn’t lying when he said that he’s not really ready to sleep yet. Now that he’s fully up and conscious, he realises that his little nap in the wine cellar seems to have given him a surge of slightly restless energy. He rattles around the kitchen for a while, opening and closing cupboards and marvelling at the vast array of spices he finds. There is also a jar of candied… orange peel? Lemon? He’s not exactly sure. He crunches his way through several pieces, eyeballing the rows of gleaming metal pots and pans with interest. Trevor may not know a great deal about cooking, but even he can tell that this place is pretty swanky. There are three separate fireplaces, unlit at present but set up with spits for roasting meat. He wonders vaguely if Dracula ever roasted _people_ over those fires, or if vampirism is a strictly raw meat diet. Probably the latter. Hopefully the latter, anyway. He shudders. Besides the fireplaces there are two bread ovens, and a little door off to the side leads to a room stacked with bag after bag of flour and oats and other grains. And not a rat in sight! Impressive.

 

Once he’s certain that he’s found everything worth looking at and/or eating in the kitchen, he finds himself slightly at a loss. He could go find a bedroom – there seem to be guest rooms everywhere in this place, so it’s not exactly going to be a difficult task – but he really isn’t all that sleepy yet. In any case, the noise in the library has started up again already, so there’s really no point even contemplating sleep until it’s passed. But he doesn’t particularly want to just… sit it out. Trevor is a man of action, first and foremost, and he has absolutely no desire to sit here alone with only his thoughts and the distant sounds of some kind of demonic howling monster for company.

 

He ambles out of the kitchen with no particular destination in mind – the training room, maybe? It’s never a bad time to beat the shit out of something in the name of healthy physical exercise, after all. Or maybe he should go back to the wine cellar… he doesn’t have any particular need for a drink, but he’s never been one to turn his back on free alcohol. Or he could just go and re-arrange some of the bottles. Switch out a few labels. He grins to himself – that’s bound to drive Alucard _nuts_ , which obviously makes it a brilliant course of action.

 

Trevor is hovering indecisively outside the wine cellar when he hears a very soft scuffling noise emanating from inside a door just down the hall from him. He freezes, squinting down the hall; it looks like one of the locked doors that he’d busted open earlier while he was searching for the wine cellar. He doesn’t remember exactly what was in this one, but he’s pretty sure it was just a storage dump for various bits and pieces of slightly moth-eaten old furniture. He certainly doesn’t remember anything in there that would have any reason to be making a noise, that’s for sure. He pads down the hall as softly as he can, eyes straining to pick out any movement in the darkness beyond the cellar door. For a moment, everything is still, and quiet, and he almost thinks he’s imagining it, but then he hears it again… a very quiet, very muffled, but very a _nimal_ scratching sound. He stares down the dark steps into the cellar, and for a moment he contemplates going upstairs to alert Alucard and Sypha. Only, of course, they’re probably busy, and in any case, if it’s just a rat or something he’ll look like a complete ass if he goes and disturbs them…

 

Actually, that’s a good point. It’s probably just a rat. No need to panic.

 

He pulls Vampire Killer from his belt, anyway. Just in case it’s a really big rat, or something. And then he takes a deep breath, and creeps across the threshold and onto the cellar steps.

 

There’s a creak as he shifts his weight onto the bottom step, and the scuffling abruptly stops. Alright, he thinks, alright, so it’s a really smart rat. He squints into the darkness of the room beyond, and wishes he’d had the foresight to bring a candle or something. There are more of those strange self-lighting torches in the corridor behind him, and they cast a pool of light into the first few feet of the room beyond the stairs, but the room itself is totally unlit. The continued distant howling from below certainly isn’t helping the whole situation to feel any less enormously creepy.

 

“Hello,” says Trevor, “hey, is… is anyone there?”

 

As soon as he’s said it he knows that it was a mistake. Not because anything happens – far from it, the room remains suspiciously quiet – but because it makes him contemplate the possibility that somebody could actually be there. Somebody person-shaped, not rat-shaped. Or, well, somebody vampire-shaped, and since he’s seen Alucard turn into a wolf how would he even know if any rats he finds really are rats, or just vampires _pretending_ to be rats, or- oh god. It’s just all too much to even contemplate. The idea of a voice replying out of the dark is far worse than the idea of being attacked, now he thinks about it. What if it’s a survivor of the fight in the castle, and it’s all bony and half-dead and can’t actually fight but it crawls toward him anyway? Trevor shudders.

 

“Actually, on second thoughts,” he says, “if anyone is there, please don’t answer that. I’d rather you just attack me, to be honest. Thanks.”

Nobody answers.

“If you’re a rat you can just come over here and-” he hesitates for a moment. “Well, if you’re a rat I guess… I guess you can’t understand me… um.”

The sudden onset of a particularly ferocious bout of screaming from below certainly does nothing for his nerves.

“Shit,” he mutters, and then, “SHIT!” as a tiny shape comes pelting out of the dark cellar toward his feet.

 

He leaps back, stumbling over the steps, and almost drops his whip; the little creature halts abruptly, cowering back toward the darker parts of the cellar. It makes a pathetic little whining noise, tail firmly tucked between its legs, as another shriek from below reverberates through the air. It’s definitely not a vampire, which is a relief, but it doesn’t seem to be a rat, either. Actually, although it’s a bit dark for a clear view, Trevor’s pretty sure it’s some kind of very small black-and-white dog. How strange. What the hell is that doing down here?

 

He hesitates a moment before crouching down and holding his hand out. Finding a tiny and probably very adorable little dog in a (prior to this afternoon, anyway) locked and sealed cellar is undeniably suspicious, but he’s never been one to leave an animal in trouble if he can help it. “Hey buddy,” he says, as softly as he can manage, “what are you-” and then the little dog steps forward into the light, and Trevor recoils. “- oh my god,” he mutters, staring down at the glowing blue eye, the gaping eye socket where the other should be, and the- god, is that leg just… bone? It’s just bone below the knee.

 

It’s not a black-and white dog, it’s a black dog with… oh god. The white is bone. The white is _bone_. Holy shit.

 

“What happened to you, huh?” he murmurs, trying not to alarm the poor thing further as he reaches out to gently pet it on the side of its head that isn’t… that isn’t missing most of its flesh.

The dog, for its part, wags its tail and looks remarkably unphased for a creature that currently has a significant amount of its skeleton on the outside of its body.

Trevor sits back onto the step with a thump, and the dog trots over and hops up into his lap, making a series of delightful little wuffling noises and turning in circles before flopping onto its back and wiggling its legs expectantly at Trevor. Including the bone leg. It’s just… wiggling its bone leg at him. Christ. He pets its tummy absent-mindedly, unable to take his gaze off the horrible wounds it seems to have sustained.

“What happened to you, hmm? What happened to you…” he glances down, “uh… boy? What happened?”

The dog yips happily, and carries on wiggling its stubby little legs – _one of which it cannot be stressed enough is literally just a bone_ – in evident delight. It’s cute, but it’s also… well, this dog has been been locked in a cellar for god knows how long without food, and its eye glows, and its other eye is a hole, and therefore the fact that it seems to be otherwise perfectly fine and happy is decidedly troubling.

 

Trevor sighs, and fixes the dog with his best suspicious glare. “You’re not a- you’re not a vampire’s dog, are you?”

“Aruff?”

“Like a… a spy dog for a nasty vampire? Or a vampire pretending to be a dog? Because I feel like that’s gonna make things really awkward between us.” He carefully takes hold of the dog and lifts it up to eye level. “Are you… a good boy?”

The dog cocks its head, tongue lolling out slightly.

“Well? Are you? Who’s a good boy?”

The dog wags its tail, and barks, and then licks Trevor’s face.

He grins. “You are, aren’t you! You’re a good boy!”

The dog continues to bark with increasing intensity, wiggling its whole body from side to side with utter delight.

 

Trevor laughs, and lowers it back down into his lap. “Hey- woah, hey there buddy, take it easy, yeah? We need to go find you some… um. A leg? Some bandages? I don’t know.”

He stands, and cradles the dog against his chest. If he heads back to the kitchen he can probably find it at least something to eat and maybe a rag to bind up the worst of the wounds… although, admittedly, it doesn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere. Or in pain, as far as he can tell.

“I feel like I shouldn’t trust you,” he tells the dog, who stares up at him adoringly as he speaks. “But… you’re very friendly. So you’re probably fine, right?”

“Awoof!” says the dog.

“Oh, good,” says Trevor, as it gives his chin another lick, “Well, I’ll take your word for it. Now, I wonder if there are some nice bones around here which are clearly enough labelled for me to be able to tell they’re not _human_ bones. I feel like unless I’m really sure about that I’ll feel weird about giving them to you…”

The dog wags its tail.

“You probably wouldn’t care whose bones they were, would you boy?” says Trevor.

The dog yaps happily, and then whines when another loud wail echoes down the corridor.

 

Trevor frowns. “Is it me, or does that sound louder than it did last night?”

“Wruff?”

“Yeah, it sounds louder, and also…” Trevor frowns. “Is that _Latin_?”

The dog buries its face in his shirt, and Trevor sighs. There’s definitely something more cohesive about the wailing tonight. “You know, I used to have a Latin tutor,” he tells the dog, shaking his head slowly. “I never listened to much of what he was on about, and I don’t remember most of it any more, but… it _did_ sound a bit like that. I think. Well, it sounded less, uh, terrifying and howl-y. But only a bit less. He was a really scary tutor.”

He tucks the dog protectively under one arm, and draws his whip. The chanting is definitely sounding too close for comfort right now. It sounds like it’s coming from right underneath them, actually. That can’t be good.

 

He’s barely had time to make this observation when the chant picks up, and a resounding _crack_ shakes the stone beneath his feet. Trevor stumbles - barely managing to keep hold of the dog and dropping his whip entirely - as the ground shakes. He blinks, stumbling forward as he catches sight of- ah. Oh, this can’t be good. There’s now a bright, blueish sort of light shining out of… ah, that’s the wine cellar. Well, he’s not supposed to go back in there, but he figures that this probably counts as exceptional circumstances, so he scoops up his whip, re-adjusts the dog (who whines pathetically at the disturbance), and creeps over to poke his head round the door.

 

The sight that greets him is unpleasant on a whole number of levels. To start with, there’s blood _everywhere_ , and a lot of broken glass, and a lot of wine. It seems that a significant number of the casks and bottles were shattered when… well, something has broken through the floor. Or rather, someone. And that someone is currently turning around to face Trevor, and she looks very, very angry. She’s a little translucent, floating about half a foot off the ground, and emanating beams of crackling blue light across the room.

 

Trevor takes a step back as she rounds on him. “Hey, uh, just- I’m just leaving,” he says, trying to surreptitiously ready his whip, “Don’t mind me! Just-”

She launches herself at him with an unearthly wail which is, at this proximity, ear-shatteringly loud, and Trevor strikes out with Vampire Killer, hoping that it will actually make contact with-

 

Only, in the blink of an eye, she isn’t there. The whip cracks in the empty air where she had been standing, and thumps to the ground.

 

Which is… not good. Really not good. Shit Where the fuck did she go? Trevor blinks at the space where the glowing woman was, after-images of her contorted, glowing face still flickering across his vision. And then he realises what’s happened; the sound is a little muffled because that scream was loud as shit and his ears are still ringing slightly, but outside the wine cellar the clock in the corridor has just struck one.

 

Trevor stares down at the hole in the floor, heart rate slowly slowing. Alright. Ok. _Shit_. “You know, I hate to say it,” he says, patting his new friend the dog soothingly on the head, “but I think we might need to go get Sypha and Alucard to help us with this one.”

“Aruff?”

He sighs, tucking the dog gently back under his arm. “I know, I know. But, uh… hopefully they’re done by now?”

“Worf.”

“Yeah,” he says, shaking his head. “You and me both, buddy. You and me both.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that sypha and alucard weren't around for this one, but they'll be back next chapter!! in the meantime - cute dogs! plot!! 
> 
> (this chapter brought to you by the fact i wonder constantly about what happened to cezar, hectors sweet little reanimated dog. he's a good boy. a tender boy. a boy we love and cherish.)
> 
> as ever, big love to my sweet commenting angels, and to all cherubic leavers of kudos. also - im so close to par now with nano guys!! I'm now only a couple of thousand words behind where i should be. hurrah!


	15. Chapter 15

Trevor plops the dog down on the floor outside Alucard’s room with a stern, “Stay. That’s it. Stay there, boy.”

The dog blinks, looking baffled, and trots up to paw at Trevor’s leg.

He sighs. “I said _stay_.”

“Arf,” says the dog, hopping up and licking Trevor’s knee, which is about the highest point it can reach.

“Sit?” tries Trevor.

The dog flops onto its back, and wiggles its legs.

“… close enough.”

 

Trevor steels himself, and after a moment’s thought puts one hand over his eyes as he opens the door with the other.

 

“Oh,” he hears Sypha say, sounding slightly surprised, and then, “Trevor, you came! We were just talking about you, actually.”

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” says Alucard, dryly. “I thought you were back in the wine cellar, to be honest.”

“Of course I wasn’t!” says Trevor, indignant. Then he frowns. “Well, uh, technically I was, but… I don’t know if you heard the noises downstairs at all, because-”

Sypha cuts across his rambling with a little laugh. “Trevor, why on earth do you have your hand over your eyes like that?”

“Erm,” says Trevor, with an awkward little shrug, “Well, you know, I didn’t want to, um… I mean, I didn’t know if you were decent, so…”

She laughs. “I resent the implication that I have ever been _decent_ , but nobody is naked, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You could have knocked,” says Alucard. “That’s what normal people do. You do know how to knock on a door, yes?”

“I…” says Trevor, frowning slightly. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I could have… huh. Yeah.”

“Also,” says Sypha, cheerfully, “you’ve already seen both of us naked, so it’s not as though you’re going to see anything you haven’t already seen. What’s a bit of casual nudity among friends, hmm?”

 

“Well, I… um…” says Trevor, lowering his hand and blinking owlishly at the light. Sypha and Alucard are both sat on the bed, their legs folded. They’re both in their nightwear, and Sypha seems to have paused partway through the process of braiding Alucard’s hair. They’re also both staring at Trevor. “I just thought you might be,” continues Trevor, valiantly trying not to make eye-contact with anyone, “y’know… busy.”

“Ah,” says Alucard, delicately. “Oh, you mean…”

“You can just say ‘fucking’,” says Sypha, conversationally, and Alucard makes a startled choking noise.

“Oh my god,” says Trevor.

“What?” Sypha rolls her eyes. “You were meaning it, you might as well say it. And really, would it be so awful if we were?”

“Yes!” says Trevor, a little too fast. And then, feeling a hot flush of shame wash over himself, “No, wait, I mean, not- not that it would be any of my… you know, obviously you two can do whatever you want to, or… that is, it’s your business of course, I just- I don’t want to, uh, intrude, or-”

“Who says you’d be intruding?” says Sypha, eyes wide. The question seems… surprisingly genuine.

“Uh,” says Trevor, feeling several of the gears in his brain grind to a screaming halt. He must have heard that wrong. Or- or she’s joking. Or… or she’s not joking? Oh god. “Wait, I- what?”

 

“Who says you’d be intruding?” repeats Sypha, going a little pink but gallantly powering through it. “Oh, look, this is so stupid, I just… Trevor. Darling. In case it wasn’t clear, I obviously- that is, _we_ obviously- oh my god! What happened to that dog?!”

Trevor blinks, and turns around to see his new canine friend has scooted through the open door and is now peering out from behind his legs. He sighs, and picks him up, accepting several cheerful licks to his chin and neck with a resigned expression. “I told you to stay outside,” he says, still feeling slightly dazed.

“Aroof!” The dog licks his chin again.

 

Sypha has already hopped off the bed and is across the room next to Trevor at lightning speed. She gingerly reaches out to turn the dog’s head with a shocked little gasp. “What happened to him? Is he going to be alright? Alucard, do you have some- some bandages, to start, and then maybe something to clean the wound, and then-”

Alucard shakes his head, yawning as he steps over to join the others. “No, he doesn’t need it. That’s just how he is.”

Sypha stares. “But… but he’s…”

“Reanimated.”

“Oh!”

“Indeed. I’m glad to inform you that other than his total lack of training, his tendency to lick people who do not wish to be licked, and the fact that he is, well, dead,” says Alucard, “he’s absolutely fine. His name is Cezar.”

 

“Oh!” says Trevor, putting Cezar down on one of the dressers so Sypha can reach to pet his tummy a bit more easily, “Yeah, he- you know him?”

Alucard shrugs. “Not really. I’d say we’re more like… acquaintances.”

“How the fuck can you be _acquaintances_ with a dog?”

“Well, in the sense we know each other a little bit, but we aren’t close. He’s not _mine_. He belonged to one of my father’s generals, as far as I can tell, and since I returned he’s mostly been avoiding me. He doesn’t like that I’m a wolf sometimes - I think it makes him feel inferior. I hadn’t seen him in a while so I assumed he must have left the castle, but evidently not.”

“But if you hardly know him, then how do you know his name?”

“I asked him.”

“You-”

“While I was a wolf, obviously.”

“Right,” says Trevor, nodding his head slowly. “Yeah, of course. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. You had a chat with the reanimated dog you’ve left running around your house while you were a wolf! Because you can turn into a wolf!”

 

Sypha pats his arm gently. “Trevor, are you alright? You look a bit… stressed.”

“He can turn into a wolf!” says Trevor, pointing an accusatory finger at Alucard, “And you’re both so attractive it makes me want to cry! And there’s a hole in the basement dripping human blood into the library! God, I’m… I’m so tired.”

“You’re very pretty too,” says Sypha, smiling softly as she leans up on tiptoes to smooth a strand of hair off his face.

“She’s not wrong,” says Alucard, with an expression which can’t seem to decide if it’s begrudging or fond. And then he frowns, and splutters, “Wait, sorry - there’s a _what_ in the basement?”

“Oh,” says Trevor, as Sypha’s hand trails down to touch his cheek. He feels light-headed, suddenly, like he’s floating slightly. This can’t be right. Sypha seems to be- and Alucard had said- and they both-

Alucard snaps his fingers. “Belmont! Focus! There’s human blood in the basement from w _here_ exactly?”

 

“Oh!” says Trevor, trying to drag his focus away from Sypha’s gentle smile and failing miserably. “Oh, yeah, that’s why I came upstairs in the first place. I saw the ghost.”

“You did?!” says Alucard, and then, “Hang on, the ghost is in the library, what- what the fuck were you doing in the library on your own? Do you have no sense of self-preservation at all, Belmont?”

Sypha puts her hands on her hips. “Trevor, what have I told you about not putting yourself in unnecessary danger?”

“That I shouldn’t- wait, hang on. I wasn’t even in the library!”

“Then what-”

“I was down in the kitchens feeling sorry for myself, and then I found Cezar, and then the howling from the library got super loud and there was a bunch of chanting in… I think in Latin, but I’m kinda rusty so don’t hold me to that, and then there was this big cracking noise, and then this glowing lady was in the wine cellar and she yelled at me but then the clocks struck one and she disappeared.”

“I… see.” says Alucard, looking slightly shell-shocked. “And the human blood…?”

“Oh, yeah, that was all over the floor. It was kind of a mess in the wine cellar in general, to be honest. She must have broken a bunch of your casks when she cracked through the library ceiling. It looked pretty messy.”

 

Alucard opens his mouth. Then he closes his mouth. Then he sits back down on the bed, and massages his temples with the tips of his fingers.

“You alright there?” says Trevor.

“The past five minutes,” he says, delicately, “have given me a lot to unpack.”

Trevor snorts. “Tell me about it.”

Sypha gives his hand a sympathetic squeeze, then leans over and kisses Alucard’s forehead gently. “We should probably go and check the wine cellar, hmm?”

Alucard sighs, standing up and pacing a little to and fro across the room as he talks. “Probably. Dear god. Alright, so… Latin chanting… the crack in the floor… and you said she was glowing?”

Trevor nods.

Alucard closes his eyes and frowns very hard for a few seconds, and then his sighs dejectedly. “Nope. No idea. I’ve got nothing. Sypha?”

She shrugs. “Beats me.”

 

“Well, maybe she’s some kind of… ghost witch?” says Trevor. “I mean, she was sort of see-through and she disappears for a solid twenty three hours of the day, and when you were down there before you couldn’t even see her, right? Which all sounds kind of… ghost-adjacent. Especially with all the wailing she’s been doing. Big on wailing ominously, ghosts are.”

“Right,” nods Alucard, slowly.

“But she can also do magic stuff, as evidenced by her chanting her way through your wine cellar floor. And she appears during the witching hour, which is pretty weird if it’s a coincidence. So… ghost witch!” Trevor does jazz hands for a moment, then frowns to himself. “Actually, maybe that’s a dumb idea.”

“I don’t know that it is,” says Alucard, after a long moment. “I mean, the reliquary we found… one of Walpurga’s big things is-”

Sypha gasps, and claps her hands together. “Banishing witches! So maybe if our grumpy little friend downstairs happened upon an item associated super heavily with, like, how much people looooove St Walpurga-”

Alucard grins, “- she might have been pretty mad about it. Only it was a fake relic, so it probably didn’t have any real power that would stop her fucking with it-”

“-so she smashed it on the floor-”

“-which implies that she’s getting stronger, or at least, more corporeal because when I was down there she didn’t really have a physical form at all, she was just sort of… coalescing shadows and shapes. Ha!” He grabs Trevor by the shoulders and plants a delighted kiss on his forehead. “Aha! Trevor, you’re a genius!”

 

“I… am?” says Trevor, reaching up to touch his forehead with baffled wonder.

“You are!” says Sypha, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Hey, lean down a second, I can’t reach you up there…”

He obliges and leans down almost without thinking, and then goes very still when she leans up and kisses his forehead too. She beams, and pats his cheek – and then she turns to Alucard with a sudden frown. “Oooh, but if she can move stuff around, and she’s got a route into the castle now…”

Alucard nods. “It’s not good, that’s for sure. Perhaps we can seal off the hole in the floor, or… I don’t know. We’ll work something out. I wonder why she’s getting stronger?”

Sypha shrugs. “Hard to say. I mean, I know about witch stuff, but not really about ghost stuff, so…”

“Mmm. Well, whatever’s going on, it’s troubling. And we only have a certain number of hours before we have to deal with her again…” he sighs. “We should head straight down to the wine cellar.”

Sypha pouts, casting a longing glance back at the bed. “Really? Can’t it wait?”

Alucard laughs, running a fond hand through her hair. “You are absolutely incorrigible. No, it can’t wait! We have a limited amount of time to sort this out.”

She sighs. “But I want to go to bed! I’m _tired_. And Trevor is here now.”

Trevor scratches his head. “What do I have to do with that?” he says, trying not to sound overly hopeful. It’s just that… well. She _had_ said he wouldn’t be intruding. Maybe…

 

Sypha gives him her best haughty glare, slightly ruined by the fact that she’s picking up Cezar as she does it and he tries to lick her face. “Oh, well,” she says, “you know, it’s weird, but it is actually much easier to sleep well when you are not worrying that your friend is drinking himself to death in the basement.”

“Oh,” says Trevor. “Oh, I… I didn’t think about that, I guess.”

“Well, maybe you should have done!” says Sypha, and then she shakes her head, gaze softening imperceptibly. “But you’re here now, which is what matters. Still, the point stands. And also, now I think about it, I have another good reason that you should be present at bedtime.”

“Yeah?”

She grins. “I find that it’s easier to sleep when there are two very beautiful men in my bed instead of just one.”

And with that she turns on her heel, and stalks off down the corridor, Cezar cradled happily in her arms.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway, for all i clown him for his general dumbassery, trevor is actually pretty smart when it comes to Fighting The Creatures Of The Night. so shoutout to trevor fr being an excellent Solver of Mysteries, and for also beginning to like... understand that his friends love and care about him (and want to kiss him)
> 
> thank u to everyone who's left comments and kudos, i'm getting thru replies a bit slowly because i just got a job (hurrah!) and have a bunch of forms to fill in as a result (boo). but i promise i will get to them all asap! u are all stars and make me very happy!! also, i'm glad everyone is as fond of cezar as i am, i genuinely NEED s3 to give me answers abt how all the resurrected pets are doing like..... netflix plz...........


	16. Chapter 16

Alucard stands at the top of the steps, regarding the mess that was once a very well-stocked wine cellar with abject dismay. “This isn’t good,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “This… this is bad.”

“Yep, that’s what we generally call things that aren’t good,” says Trevor, with a cheerful pat on his shoulder. “Still, it could be worse, right?”

“In what way could it be worse?” grumbles Alucard, kneeling down to inspect the shards of a particularly fancy-looking bottle. “You know, I was saving this bottle. Saving it! And to what end? For it to be thoughtlessly smashed upon the cellar floor, mixed in with a hundred other lesser vintages and a thousand shards of powdered glass…” He sighs deeply.

 

Sypha crouches next to him and holds Cezar out in front of his face. “Look! A puppy! Can you be sad when such a sweet little dog is here with us?”

“Aroof!” says Cezar, wagging his tail.

“Of course I can,” says Alucard, morosely. “Look at all this _mess_.” He glares at Cezar. “Stop smiling. This isn’t funny.”

“Alucard!” says Sypha, “he’s just a sweet little dog, he’s not deliberately-”

“He is! Look at his smug little face. He’s mocking my misery."

“Good boy!” says Trevor, giving Cezar a pat on the head as he carefully steps further into the room.

“Trevor!” says Sypha, with a scandalised expression.

“What? Alucard needs a good mocking every now and again. It keeps him on his toes.”

 

Trevor crunches through the debris on the floor and stops a few paces from the ragged crack in the floor, pulling a torch from the wall and lifting it up to illuminate the hole. It’s substantial enough in size that an entire barrel seems to have rolled into it and smashed on the library floor far, far below. It’s not a part of the library he immediately recognises, and he surmises that it must be quite a way from the entrance.

“Looks like a mess down there,” he says, squinting slightly and adjusting the torch to try and get a better view into the darkness below. He swirls a toe through the congealing blood-wine-glass slurry on the floor and wrinkles his nose. “I hope none of this stuff got on my books.”

“They’re _my_ books, actually,” says Alucard, with a delicate little sniff, coming over to stand next to Trevor and inspect the damage. “You gave them to me.”

Trevor grunts. “Your books, my books… same difference.”

Sypha trots over to join then, Cezar tucked under her arm. “Aww. They’re our books!”

“Hang on- they’re definitely not _your_ books,” says Alucard.

“Yeah, fuck you, Sypha,” says Trevor, cheerfully linking arms with Alucard. “No books for you!”

 

Sypha rolls her eyes. “You two are the worst. Cezar would never treat me like this. Would you, boy? Would you?” She lifts Cezar up to her face and blows raspberries on his stomach while he wiggles delightedly.

Alucard narrows his eyes and nudges Trevor’s shoulder. “See? I knew I disliked that dog for a reason. Look at him. Worming his pathetic little way into her good graces…”

Trevor turns to him with a snort of laughter. “Are you seriously jealous of a fucking pug?”

“… no,” says Alucard. It’s not particularly convincing, especially because he’s still glaring at Cezar with the kind of vehemence most people would reserve for their mortal enemies.

 

Trevor raises the torch once more, takes another look at the hole in the floor, and sighs. “We’re gonna need a really long rope to get down there.”

Sypha momentarily pauses in her tickling of Cezar, who whines sadly at the lack of attention. “Can’t we just go through the other entrance like we did before?”

Trevor shrugs, putting the torch back into the brace on the wall with a frown. “Maybe. But I’m pretty sure it’s snowing again. It was last time I checked, anyway…”

Alucard nods, biting his lip thoughtfully. “It’s worse than before. I doubt I’d have trouble out there, but you two might. It’s probably easier to drop a rope down here and avoid going outside altogether.”

“Show off,” says Trevor.

“I’m not showing off, I’m just pointing out that, unlike you, I can turn into a wolf. Snow isn’t much of a problem when you’re a wolf.”

“I dunno… that still kinda sounds like showing off, if you ask me.”

Alucard flips him off, grinning cheerfully.

“Well, if we can find a rope then perhaps that’s the better option,” says Sypha, shaking her head at their antics. “I’d rather not burn myself out melting snow if we’re going to be fighting any time soon.”

Alucard nods. “There should be some rope in one of the cellars somewhere… maybe even a rope ladder, if we’re lucky. Hmm. I’ll go and have a look…”

 

He’s making his way out of the cellar when Sypha calls out to him. “Oh, Alucard, wait a minute!”

“Yes?”

“What about Cezar?”

“What about him?”

“Well,” says Sypha, “He’s not going to be able to come down to the library with us. And we can’t exactly leave him here, can we?”

“I don’t see why not,” grumbles Alucard.

“It’s not safe!” says Sypha.

“He’s dead.”

“But he might get glass in his sweet little paws.”

“I’m not even sure he can feel pain, let alone-”

“Alucard!”

 

Alucard sighs. “Alright, look, hand him over and I’ll go… I don’t know, put him in the kitchen or something.

Sypha narrows her eyes at him, clutching Cezar firmly to her chest. “How do I know that you will put him somewhere safe, and not- and not throw him out into the storm! A poor little defenceless puppy! On his own!”

Cezar turns his single big, sad, baleful eye toward Alucard, and whines.

“I don’t- look, firstly, that wouldn’t really be a problem for him because, again, he’s dead, and secondly-”

“Alucard! Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean he doesn’t have _feelings_!”

“Alright, alright,” says Alucard, with a long-suffering sigh, “Look, I don’t hate the little bastard, I’m not going to throw him outside or lock him in a cupboard or anything, I just…”

“What?”

“Well, he pissed on my bed one time, and it took me ages to-”

 

Trevor and Sypha both burst out laughing. Cezar looks distinctly pleased with himself.

“It’s not funny,” says Alucard, plaintively. “He doesn’t even need to drink, or eat, or- you know, he deliberately consumed liquid specifically so that he could-”

“Oh no,” says Sypha, who actually has tears welling up in her eyes from laughing so hard, “oh, that’s so funny.”

“It’s not!”

She wipes away a tear. “Do you promise not to throw him out into the blizzard as retribution for pissing on your bed?”

Alucard nods, curtly.

Sypha laughs as she hands Cezar carefully over to Alucard, who holds him out at arm’s length with a vaguely pained expression. “Go on then,” she says, “go put him somewhere he won’t get up to mischief. And find some rope!”

 

Alucard looks somewhat put out at being handed the dog, but does as he’s told without further complaint. When he returns, rope in hand, Sypha and Trevor are inspecting a slightly rusty but otherwise serviceable-looking iron hook in the ceiling.

 

Sypha beckons him over, stroking her chin thoughtfully. “Hey, do you think this would hold up a person’s weight? We thought we could maybe hang a rope from-”

“Probably,” says Alucard, eyeballing it cautiously. “Before this was a wine cellar, it was, uh…”

“A sex dungeon?” blurts Trevor, before his brain can catch up with his mouth.

“I- no, Belmont! It was just a regular dungeon. For… for torturing people and stuff. Alright?”

“Oh,” says Trevor, “Yeah. Vampire castle. I forgot.”

“In fairness,” says Sypha, eyeing the hook with a contemplative expression, “some people are into very strange things, aren’t they? You never quite know what-”

“No!” says Alucard. A vein is popping slightly in his temple. “No, we’re not- I don’t even want to hear a suggestion of-” he points a warning finger at Sypha. “This is my dad’s dungeon, ok! And he used it just for normal, regular, run of the mill dungeon things, like… like…”

Trevor raises an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Alucard growls. “Like impaling people on fucking spikes and pulling all their fingernails off and stuff. Alright?”

“Ah,” says Sypha.

“He used to hang meat up on the hooks to cure, apparently.”

“When you say ‘meat’…”

“People. Yeah. So, yes, the hook will probably hold a person’s weight just fine.”

 

Trevor clears his throat awkwardly. “Well. He sounds like a barrel of laughs, huh?”

Alucard deflates slightly, going to loop the rope he’s carrying over the hook with a sigh. “He turned it into a wine cellar years before I was born. I never…” he shakes his head. “He wasn’t like that. Not while mother was around, anyway. I know it sounds stupid, but I can’t help thinking that, if things had been different, you guys would have… I don’t know.” He shakes his head.

“What?” asks Sypha, softly.

“I keep thinking that you would have… liked him.” Alucard stares at the rusted iron hook he’s currently tying a rope around, and sighs. “He would have liked you. Or, at least, I think he would, only…” He shakes his head again. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff I thought about him that turned out not to be true, I guess.”

 

Trevor and Sypha share a brief glance, and within the blink of an eye they’re on either side of Alucard pulling him into a hug. He stiffens slightly, expression unreadable.

Trevor gives him a nudge. “What?”

Alucard chuckles, but there’s an edge to it. “Nothing,” he says, letting himself relax into the hug. “Just… you probably shouldn’t let me get too used to this.”

“Why ever not?” asks Sypha, frowning up at him.

“Well, you know. I’ll miss it when you’re gone.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” says Sypha, fiercely. “Isn’t that right, Trevor?”

Trevor grunts, and buries his head in Alucard’s shoulder with a begrudging sigh. “Yeah, we, uh… care about you and stuff. I guess.”

“We really do!” says Sypha, making a valiant effort to get her arms all the way round both Alucard and Trevor at once, and squeezes fiercely.

 

After a moment, she says. “Ok, so… Alucard, I want to keep giving you a hug and telling you I care about you and stuff but, actually, there is quite a lot of blood and wine soaking into my shoes right now so… maybe we should stop hanging around here and go and visit the library first? And I will reassure you about my affections later.”

Alucard laughs at that, a proper full-body chuckle that Trevor can feel reverberating through his chest. “Yes, alright. Alright.”

Sypha lets go of them both, and gives them a stern glare. “I really like you guys and I want you to be happy, and I am going to remind you of that at some point when we’re not all standing in, like, the world’s worst mixed drink for vampires-”

Alucard snort-laughs with incredible indignity, and then makes a soft wheezing noise, clutching at Trevor as he tries to regain his breath. “Sypha! Have some respect for the finest vintages of my ancestors!”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s true! It’s all gross and full of glass, apart from anything else.”

Alucard regards the slush all over the floor with a resigned sigh. “You’re not wrong.”

 

Sypha gives his arm a comforting pat. “We’ll find you some nice new wine for your cellar, alright?” Then she turns to inspect the hole in the floor, hands on her hips. “Ok, is that rope secure?”

Alucard gives it a tug, and shrugs. “Should be.”

“I’m going down first.”

“Wait a second-” says Alucard.

“Hang on-” begins Trevor.

Sypha raises her palm. “No debates! I’m going first because I’m the lightest, and because if I say one of you can go first you’ll spend the next half hour bickering over who gets to do it.”

“But-” says Trevor.

“Am I wrong?”

He sighs. “I guess not.”

 

Sypha beams. “Well, there you go! Alright, stay safe boys, don’t kill each other while I’m not here.”

“Can’t promise anything,” says Alucard, with a smirk.

“As soon as you’re out of sight I’m gonna deck him,” says Trevor.

Sypha ignores them both, and carefully lowers herself into the pit below the floor.

 

Trevor and Alucard both peer over the edge. “Do you need a light?” asks Trevor.

A flame flickers into being a foot or so above her head. “No, I’m all good,” she calls, grinning up at them and winking smugly, before turning her attention back to descending the rope.

“Little git,” says Alucard, with a fond smile.

“She really is,” agrees Trevor.

 

They watch Sypha descend the rope for a few moments in companionable silence. Eventually, once she’s far enough away not to be able to hear them speak, Alucard clears his throat.

“You know,” he says, making a very obvious effort to keep the tone conversational and failing pretty spectacularly, “When you two went off together after… after everything-”

Trevor winces. “Yeah, look, I know I’ve said it before, but I really am sorry about that. It was dumb. We figured you needed… I dunno. Space, I guess? Which was kind of a sucky-”

Alucard shakes his head. “It’s fine. And that’s not actually what I wanted to bring up.”

“No?”

“No. I just… when you two went off to go adventuring, I sort of assumed that you, uh. That you’d taken up together, I suppose.”

“Oh,” says Trevor, feeling that weird churning in the pit of his stomach return. “Well. We weren’t. Aren’t. So, y’know.” He waves his hand awkwardly, avoiding Alucard’s eye. “You’ve got, uh, free rein, or whatever. None of my business.”

 

Alucard stares at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. “Isn’t it?”

“No?” says Trevor, and then, more firmly, “No. Why would it be?”

Alucard seems to be very focused on checking his nails for invisible bits of dirt. “I don’t know,” he says, eventually. “Forgive me, I don’t mean to intrude.”

Trevor shrugs. “Nothing to intrude on,” he says, gruffly.

 

They both sit in silence for a very long moment, and then Alucard gives a frustrated groan and says, “Trevor, she likes you. You realise that, yes?”

“She… we… we’re friends?”

Alucard gives him a very stern look. “Yes, and she _likes_ you.”

“In a…” Trevor blinks, slowly. “In a… like, more than…”

“Yes, Belmont, in a more than friends way. Good lord. Is that not obvious?”

 

Trevor stares at him for a long few seconds. “I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” says Alucard, rather testily.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Alucard sighs. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“But aren’t you two- I mean, I figured that you are her-”

“Yes.”

“So why-”

“Look,” says Alucard, grabbing Trevor by the shoulders and giving him a little shake.  “Don’t make me repeat this but – god forgive me – I actually care about you, Belmont. And seeing you mope around like a miserable great lug because you think Sypha doesn’t care about you when she so evidently does is… god! Indescribably frustrating! Just. Fucking. Talk to her. Alright?”

 

“But-” begins Trevor.

“I’m down!” calls Sypha, her voice echoing up from far, far below. “Who’s coming next?”

“Hang on a second,” says Trevor, as Alucard backs up toward the hole in the floor. “Wait, so, do you mean that-”

 

Alucard turns into a bat, and flits into the crack in the floor and out of sight.

 

Trevor stares after him. He stares down at the hole, and the rope, and the steady drip of blood and wine and glass that’s still trickling over the edge.

“Huh,” he says, after a moment of baffled silence. “Well… huh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm finally up to par with my wordcount for nanowrimo, hurrah! This story probably has a few more chapters in it, but not toooooo many... I'll let you know when the end is nigh, haha. im guessing there's something like 3 to 5 chaps left in this one and then i might write some oneshots?? but WHO KNOWS because i'm sorta winging it so we shall see ^_^
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter and thank you as always to all the lovely folk who leave comments and kudos, every time I post a new update I lowkey brick it & think it's gonna suck so having people be actually excited to read it is??? really buckwild and very confidence boosting. thank u. i hope u all have great days !!


	17. Chapter 17

Trevor doesn’t like climbing down a plain old rope any more than he likes rope ladders, but the way the hairs on the back of his neck stand up when his feet finally hit the ground below feels weird enough that he almost hops back onto it. There’s a sudden surge of static through his feet, and it’s accompanied by an icy sense of dread that sweeps through him in an instant, sending a crackling cold shiver up his spine.

 

“What the-” he begins.

“Oh, you got it too! I wondered if it was just a magic user thing,” says Sypha, tapping her nose thoughtfully. “Hey, come step over here, it’s fine once you’re out of the circle…”

“The circle?” asks Trevor, feeling his teeth chatter and his knees shake. Alright, what the fuck is-

Sypha takes his hand, and gently drags him away from the rope. As soon as he’s made it a few paces away, all the feeling seems to rush back into his feet, and he feels- well, not calm, exactly, but not like he’s about to fucking die, which is a definite improvement. “There,” says Sypha, reaching up to stroke his cheek, “that’s better, hmm?”

 

Trevor nods slowly. “What the fuck was that?”

Sypha points at the floor behind him. “Magic circle. Must be how she got through the roof.”

Trevor turns round. It’s hard to spot it, because it’s covered in splinters of wood from one of the fallen barrels, and wine, and blood, and god knows what else that’s come down with the bits of the ceiling from above, but it’s there. A chalk circle on the wooden floor. He crouches next to it, inspecting the design. It’s complex; all sigils and lines and carefully scrawled words in a script he doesn’t even recognise. He steps a toe back over the edge and shudders, that strange static chill shivering through his body once more. He steps back. “Huh,” he says, eventually. “Weird.”

 

“Very weird,” agrees Sypha, with a nod. “Makes you feel all…” she shivers. “Urgh. Awful.”

“Should we… I dunno, should we try and wipe it away or something? Break the lines?”

“Not sure.” She paces around the circle, wrinkling her nose and pulling the same adorable frown she always does when she’s really concentrating on something. “It might do more harm than good. Magic circles are like…” she waves her hands vaguely in the air, “Like energy channels for magic. It’s hard to explain. They’re… conductors, I suppose. And something is obviously still powering this one - I’m not sure if breaking it might release something unpleasant.”

“Like what?”

She shrugs. “Oh, you know… all sorts of stuff. A big static charge, maybe. Or a sudden rush of heat. Or a demon. I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?!”

“Well, I’m not exactly an expert on magic circles.”

“But you’re a witch!”

“Yes, but there are different _kinds_ of witches, Trevor. Magic circles aren’t really a Speaker thing. Where’s Alucard, by the way?” She glances up at the hole in the roof with a frown. “ALUCARD!” she shouts, “YOU CAN COME DOWN NOW-”

 

“Oh,” says Trevor, narrowing his eyes and scanning the room for any bat-shaped movement and failing to find anything, “he’s already down here.”

“What? But I would have seen him if-”

“He’s a bat. We had… we were, uh, having a chat, and it got a bit-”

Sypha raises an eyebrow. “Got a bit _what_ , Trevor?”

“I don’t know. A bit... Um. Awkward? Weird? Fuck knows. Look, it doesn’t matter; the point is, he turned into a bat flew down into the library. I sort of assumed he was with you, to be honest.”

Sypha sighs. “Trevor, what did you say to him?”

“Nothing!”

“Oh, you said _nothing_ and it made him turn into a bat and fly away?”

“Yes! Pretty much!”

 

Sypha looks like she might quibble about that, but instead she just sits down with a tired little huff of air and pats the floor next to her. “Come and sit down.”

Trevor sits.

She leans against his arm, curling her hand into his with a little sigh. “We’re all pretty tired, huh? Everyone’s a bit on edge.”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, with a weary little laugh. “Yeah. Jesus. I am… so fucking tired.”

“And I know that it’s like two in the morning and we’re sat in your ancestor’s secret library staring at a magic circle filled with congealing blood and wine and wood and glass because an evil ghost witch blasted through our friend’s wine cellar floor-”

“As you do.”

“As you do. But… after this is all sorted…”

“Hmm?”

Sypha slides an arm round his waist and squeezes gently. “We should take a break. A real break.”

 

Trevor hesitates. “We… all of us?”

“Of course.”

He hesitates for a moment, and then thinks, you know what, maybe sometimes not everything needs to be second guessed. So he nods, and he says, “Yeah. Yeah, I think… I think that would be nice.”

 

She bites her lip, brow furrowed. “I just keep thinking about how tired I am, but it’s… it’s not the sort of tired that sleep can fix, you know? Everything since Gresit has been so… so much. All the travelling and the fighting and the fear and… and we won! We killed Dracula! But…”

“Yeah. Yeah, it doesn’t quite feel like you think it will, huh? It never does.”

“I mean, he was Alucard’s _dad_ , you know?”

“I know.”

“And a lot of people died! And I saw a lot of things that… I don’t know.”

“You saw a lot of dark fucking shit, Sypha,” he says, rubbing her back consolingly, “If you’re not used to it-”

“I mean, I’m a grown woman! And I wouldn’t say I was ever a sheltered child; I helped out with births, and I bandaged wounds, and I washed bodies for burial and stuff, I’m not like some… like some prissy noble lady who’s never…” she shakes her head. “I don’t know. But before everything we’ve been through, I wasn’t exactly going around, like, slaughtering the demonic hordes of the night! Or seeing people have their entrails pulled out! It’s just been a lot to take in. And I keep thinking about… stuff I did.”

Trevor pulls her closer, and strokes her hair, and lets her think.

 

Eventually she sighs, drawing her knees up to her chest. She looks smaller like this, and Trevor thinks, shit, she’s still so young, really. We’re all so young. It’s not fucking _fair._ “It’s like…” she shakes her head. “When you’re killing a vampire you just think, oh, well I am trying to live, this is fine, but afterwards… I mean, they were people. Weren’t they?”

“They were monsters.”

“I know. But…”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. Most of the monsters are people, one way or another.” He runs a comforting hand through her hair. “Look, it’s… it gets easier. I promise. But you could – I mean, shit, both of you, wherever bat boy’s gotten to – could probably both do with some time out. Maybe we can go see some sights? I’ve always kinda wanted to visit Italy. I hear the wine is great.”

 

Sypha presses a soft kiss to his shoulder. “You need a rest too, Trevor.”

He laughs. “Not to sound like a jaded old bastard, but I’ve been schlepping around the countryside in holey socks fighting the undead spawn of darkness and night for most of my life, at this point. I’m pretty used to it by now.”

“Oh Trevor.” Sypha kisses his shoulder again. Her gaze, when she looks up at him, is immeasurably soft. “Trevor, that’s exactly why you need a rest.”

“Huh,” he says, after a moment, “Huh. I’d never thought of it like that.”

 

Alucard’s voice makes them both jump, as he rounds a nearby bookcase with near-silent footsteps. “You’ve been _thinking_ , Belmont? Don’t strain yourself.”

Trevor pats the ground next to him cheerfully. “Come and sit with us, asshole.”

Alucard sits, and lets Trevor throw an arm around his shoulders without too much protest. “What’s this in aid of?” he asks, glancing over at where Sypha has curled herself most of the way into Trevor’s lap with a smug little grin. “Sort anything interesting out?”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, flopping onto his back and dragging Sypha (who giggles) and Alucard (who makes a hissing noise like an angry cat) down with him. “We’re all gonna go on holiday together.”

“What?” says Alucard, flatly.

“We’re going to go to fucking… wherever - Rome or some shit - and we’re going to get pissed on cheap wine and not fight monsters.”

“I… see. You know, that’s not really what I-”

Trevor feels Sypha reaching over his chest to take Alucard’s hand in hers. “Trevor is elaborating his own details, there. We were just thinking a break would be nice, once we’ve dealt with this whole ghost witch business here, and cleared up the castle a bit, and we’ve made sure your granny is ok and… whatever else we need to do. After that. After that, we take a break. It’s been… quite a year.”

Alucard laughs, but it sounds a little forced. “That’s one way to put it. I suppose time away might be a reasonable idea.”

“And what about you?” says Sypha.

Next to him on the floor, Trevor feels the way Alucard tenses up at that, and then the way his whole body relaxes when he sees Sypha smile expectantly and continue, “You’ll come with us, won’t you? Oh, please say you will.”

 

And Trevor thinks, hah, look at that, I’m not the only stupid nervous bastard around here who doesn’t know how to cope with talking to somebody he likes. Thank fuck.

 

“I suppose so,” says Alucard, in his best serene, unaffected voice. “Somebody has to stop Belmont from making a complete prat of himself, after all.”

And then he buries his face in Trevor’s neck, and he grins like some kind of stupid fucking idiot and Trevor can _feel_ him grinning and it’s the best feeling in the world – to be warm, and alive, and curled up between two people who both, for some reason, actually give a shit if he lives or dies.

 

They all lie on the floor together for a few moments in contented silence, and then a few moments more. And a few more. And… Sypha yawns. Trevor feels his eyes drifting closed.

“You’d better not be falling asleep,” says Alucard.

“I’m not,” says Sypha, with another huge yawn. She settles her head on Trevor’s shoulder and sighs contentedly. “I’m just… closing my eyes…”

“For fuck’s sake. We have things to do!”

Alucard moves to stand, and is immediately restrained by two very sleepy but very determined pairs of hands.

“Fucking lie down and cuddle me like a man,” grumbles Trevor, grabbing a fistful of Alucard’s shirt and tugging.

Alucard obliges with a long suffering sigh. “This is absurd. We need to be- wait, is that a magic circle under all this shit on the floor?”

 

Sypha groans as Alucard springs onto his feet. “Hey, get back here, we're not done with you!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ,,,, three bros, chillin in a library, zero feet apart because they are in love with each other,,,,,,,
> 
> hope yall enjoy this one, i'm cruising thru on a path to finish nano in time which is BLESSED, and as ever im delighted by your charming comments and kudos and just general good vibes u've been throwin my way
> 
> this fic has been a learning curve so far & i hope that once it's done i can do a few oneshots with these three now im a bit more comfy writing them!


	18. Chapter 18

Trevor tries to keep a grip on Alucard as he springs to his feet, and is very abruptly reminded that the man is a hell of a lot stronger than he tends to let on. Trevor doesn’t stand a chance; Alucard barely seems to notice the attempt to hold him back. What he does notice, however, is that while Trevor has failed to keep Alucard himself in place, he has managed to retain hold of his shirt. Or rather, _part_ of his shirt.

 

Trevor regards the torn scrap of cloth in his hand with a surprised, “Oh. Uh. Oops?”

Alucard growls, inspecting the ragged hole in the side of his shit with an expression of deep and enduring frustration. “What the fuck have you- argh! This is a nice shirt!”

“Well, it _was_ a nice shirt,” says Sypha, brightly. “It’s pretty ruined now.”

“This is the second shirt today,” he groans, shaking his head. “The pair of you are absolute liabilities, I swear to god…”

“Sorry,” says Trevor, flopping back down onto the floor with a yawn.

 

Alucard stares at the hole in his shirt for a long moment, then shrugs and pulls it off.

Sypha whistles.

“Well, it wasn’t much good _on_ , was it?” says Alucard, a vague flush playing over his cheekbones.

“I’m not complaining,” says Sypha, with a cheerful little shrug.

 

Alucard tuts, then stalks over to inspect the circle with an expression of growing concern. “Oh dear. This is-”

“Don’t tread in it!” says Sypha, sitting up with a start.

Alucard freezes. “… why not?”

“Oh, it’ll give you the worst static shock.”

“That’s it?”

Sypha shrugs. “Yeah, it’s pretty much just that and the feeling of crippling existential dread, as far as I can tell.”

 

Alucard hums thoughtfully, then gingerly slides his foot over the line of the circle. He makes a startled noise, and Trevor stifles a laugh as his golden hair puffs up, haloing around his head with a static crackle.

“Oooh,” says Sypha, “how does that feel?”

Alucard steps sharply back from the circle, jaw clenched. “I see what you mean about the existential dread.” His hair slowly floats back down in a disarrayed mass around his shoulders, and he sighs. “Well, that explains why both of you look like you’ve been dragged through hedges backwards.”

“Ah,” says Sypha, patting the top of her head and vaguely attempting to smooth her hair down. “Oh, I suppose we do, a bit.”

“And there I was thinking that there was an interesting reason for that,” says Alucard, with a smirk. “But no! You’ve just been recreationally stepping in magic circles and rolling around on the floor demanding people hug you. Incredible.”

“Those _are_ interesting reasons,” protests Trevor.

“Well, yes, but- oh, nevermind.” He shakes his head indulgently at Trevor’s slightly baffled expression. “Sypha, did you find anything else around here? The chalk used to draw the circle, maybe?”

 

She shakes her head. “It’s probably all mushed up with the debris from above. Or she put it in her pocket and immediately forgot about it, and then she’s only going to realise where she put it when she does her laundry and she has damp chalk all in her pockets.” Sypha contemplates this thought with an expression of great glumness. “That’s what I normally do with chalk, anyway.”

“Do ghosts have pockets?” says Trevor, with interest. “Actually, scratch that- laundry? Ghost laundry? Do ghosts have to wash their ghost clothes, and do they use ghost soap? Like, when you’ve used all of a soap, does it leave a little soap ghost behind and-”

“No,” says Alucard.

“But-” says Trevor.

“ _No_ ,” says Alucard, more firmly this time.

“Ok, well, maybe not,” says Sypha, throwing up her hands in defeat as Alucard and Trevor both turn to her for support. “I’m just throwing ideas out, alright? They can’t all be winners.”

 

“I suppose they can’t,” says Alucard, shaking his head fondly. “Hmm. Alright, if we can’t find the chalk… maybe see what else has been disturbed around here? Or- aha!”

 

Alucard springs a few paces around to the other side of the circle, and crouches down next to a handful of dark-covered books, most of which seem to have been abandoned on the floor without much ceremony. His hand hovers over one particular volume, which has been discarded open on the floor with the spine up. He lifts it gingerly between two fingers, and flicks through a few pages.

“Fascinating.”

Sypha scurries over toward him, peering over his shoulder with great interest. “What is it?”

“Mmm. Well, it looks like a copy of the _Ars Notoria_.”

“The arse what?” says Trevor, hauling himself upright and loping over to join them.

“The- you’re just pretending you think I said arse because you know it will annoy me, aren’t you?”

Trevor grins, and slings a cheery arm around Alucard’s shoulder. “Yup! Got it in one.”

 

Alucard tries to give him a proper stern glare, but it’s marred slightly by the fact that he’s visibly trying not to laugh. “The _Ars Notoria_ is a… well, it depends on who you ask. I suspect that whoever originally transcribed this copy would have insisted very fervently that it’s simply a study of a rather unusual technique to aid the memory. A generously minded person might call it Theurgy. And I suspect that a great many of our ‘friends’ in the church would call it a book of Necromantic magics.”

“For raising the dead?” asks Trevor, scratching his head. “What would a witch be wanting with-”

Alucard shakes his head. “No, not exactly. Common misconception. One might well be able to raise the dead using necromancy, but the term itself simply means ‘black magic’. It’s essentially any magic that involves the summoning and binding of demons. Or that’s what it is _theoretically_ , anyway; it gets, uh… it’s a bit complicated. People tend to quibble a lot over the definition of ‘demon’.”

“They should ask me,” says Trevor. “I’m great at spotting those bastards.”

Alucard chuckles. “Perhaps. Mmm. Either way, I doubt this is the book she got that circle from,” he nods at the circle on the floor, “since it’s mostly about ways you can get demons to teach you a lot of facts and help you remember them really well. It’s, ah, notoriously popular amongst university students around exam time. Highly illegal, of course, but popular nevertheless.”

 

Sypha coos, and takes the book reverently from his hands as he turns his attention to the rest of the pile spread out across the floor. “Oooh, really? Hey, do you think I could use this to-”

“Hey, hang on,” says Trevor, snatching the book from her hands and holding it up above her head, “you can’t just go around summoning demons so you can be better at being a nerd-”

Sypha hops around with a frustrated little scowl, snatching wildly at the book and never managing to get within a foot of it. “But what if I only summoned a few demons? And I kept them really well controlled?”

“No!”

“According to the text itself,” says Alucard, thumbing through a tome with a blood-red cover and a golden skull embossed on the spine, “it isn’t actually demons you’d be summoning, anyway. In theory, the _Notoria_ is just a series of prayers which improve your memory and grant you secret knowledge.”

Trevor frowns. “And is that true?”

Alucard makes an ambivalent gesture. “It’s pretty ambiguous. The prayers are a little… heterodox.  Ritualistic. And it’s often included in volumes with more transparently demonic texts.”

 

“Prayers?” says Sypha, looking distinctly disappointed. “Urgh. Well that won’t work for me for _sure_. That’s no fun.”

“Demons aren’t much fun either,” says Trevor, putting the book down with a cautious glare at the swirling text on the cover. “You of all people must know that.”

“I know, I know!” She rolls her eyes, “Look, I wouldn’t really summon one. Probably. It’s just… imagine how useful it would be to remember stuff better…”

“That’s what writing things down is for,” says Alucard, primly. “No demonic intervention required.”

Sypha sighs. “Sometimes I do wonder if the Speaker insistence on memorisation holds us back. But then, perhaps it makes us focus more keenly on the knowledge that’s most important. I’m not sure.”

 

“Difficult to say,” says Alucard, and then, “Aha! Here we go, look at this…” He holds up a hefty dark-green tome, with large silver glyph inscribed on the front. He flips it open to a page with a series of black-inked circles. “Here, this one must be what she copied out onto the floor. Look.”

Trevor and Sypha both lean forward to inspect the book, and then look back toward the circle. It’s a bit hard to see the circle on the floor underneath all the debris from above, but the two designs do look remarkably similar.

“So, what does it do?” asks Trevor, after squinting at the text for a long moment.

“No idea,” says Alucard, cheerfully, flicking through a few pages of the book with a distinctly frazzled expression. “I have no idea what language this is even in. It’s bizarre. The script is… very odd. Sypha?”

He hands Sypha the book, and her frown deepens as she flicks through. “Oh, how strange. I don’t think it _is_ one language at all…”

“I can make headway with some of it, I caught a bit of Greek, here, look, it’s something to do with the alignments of certain stars and the impact they have on the nature of the binding, but-”

Sypha hums “Yes, it’s Greek, bits of it, but this is Cyrillic, and this is… some sort of Enochian?”

“I think so, yes. It appears to be a rather esoteric dialect.”

“I didn’t even know there _were_ dialects of-”

“No, nor did I, but there seems to be some sort of-”

“Yes, but look, only in concert with-”

“Do you suppose that the illustrations are a part of-”

 

Trevor watches as the pair of them pore over the book, chattering excitably amongst themselves, and smiles. They both do the same confused little head-tilt when they can’t work something out, and god fucking damn if it isn’t the cutest thing watching them bicker over the specifics of Enochian translation with their heads tipped in together and almost touching over the top of the book.

Alucard catches him watching, and raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing,” says Trevor. “Just thinking about how you two are huge nerds.”

“Wow, thanks,” says Alucard, turning back to the book, “Hey, Sypha, do you think perhaps this part is some sort of code?”

“It would certainly make sense if it was, given the nature of the text… I mean, you don’t exactly want just anybody to be able to read about your secret magic circle spells, do you? So, sure, code.” She frowns. “That or whoever wrote this just had _really_ bad handwriting.”

Alucard squints. “Hmm. I honestly can’t tell. It’s certainly not the best penmanship I’ve ever seen.”

They both continue to frown down at the book. Alucard tilts it to one side a little, and they both frown some more.

 

“That letter looks sort of like a really fat goat from this angle,” says Sypha, after a long and rather frustrates silence.

Alucard sighs. “I think that’s just a coincidence.”

“Hey, and this squiggle in the margin looks like a man with a really big-”

“ _Definitely_ your imagination,” says Alucard, firmly.

“But you see it, right?”

“Yes, and now you’ve said it I can’t unsee it, thank you very much. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually an intentional-”

 

“Now look,” says Trevor, “I’m sorry to interrupt this clearly highly important and intellectual discussion-”

“As you should be!” says Sypha.

“- and of course I’m no expert, but it feels like we should at least clear all this blood out of that circle before we get side-tracked. Because I don’t know what your fancy book is telling you-”

“-absolutely nothing,” says Alucard, “because we can’t read it-”

“- but my good old-fashioned gut instinct tells me that human blood, in general, should probably be kept out of the scary static-y demon circle.”

“He has a point,” says Sypha.

Alucard stares slightly wistfully at the congealing pool of red on the floor. “I suppose so. Urgh. What a waste of a good vintage. Several good vintages. Several good people, for that matter.”

“I mean, there’s nothing stopping you from licking it up-” begins Trevor.

 

Alucard treats Trevor to one of his frostier stares. “Belmont, listen, I don’t know why you are so hell-bent on getting me to lick blood off floors at the moment-”

“I’m not hell-bent on it, I’m just saying that you’re overly fussy about where your food has been-”

“I don’t want to eat something that has fucking _glass_ in it, that’s hardly me being fussy!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, pretty boy.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“You think I’m pretty?” His tone is mocking, but – and Trevor realises this with a jolt of surprise – he’s really asking, too. Like he thinks anyone with eyes would think he’s not absurdly fucking beautiful.

“I’m not a c _omplete_ idiot,” says Trevor, allowing himself to give Alucard a quick glance up and down, which very swiftly becomes a rather longer glance than planned as he finds himself suddenly very aware that not only is Alucard shirtless and wearing very low-slung trousers – which, in fairness, he’s sort of used to at this point – but he’s also covered in hickeys which… hmm. Hmm.

 

Alucard has the good grace not to mention that Trevor is clearly staring. Instead he just bumps their shoulders together, and smiles a small, private little smile – the sort of smile which could keep a man warm for days, just thinking about it. And he says. “Oh, good to know; I was beginning to wonder.”

“Bastard,” says Trevor.

“Asshole,” says Alucard, resting his head on Trevor’s shoulder.

 

From the other side of the pile of books on the floor, Sypha gives Trevor an extremely unsubtle thumbs up. He flips her off. Alucard also flips her off. Huh. Maybe the thumbs up was for Alucard, actually? It’s unclear.

She laughs, thumbing through the book she’s holding with merriment in her eyes. “What? It’s nice to see you two getting along.”

“We’re not getting along,” says Alucard, tucking his arm round Trevor’s waist with a contented little yawn. “We’re just planning how to better fight one another later. It’s tactical.”

Sypha shakes her head. “Alright. Ok. Good to know.”

“I’m so fucking tired,” grumbles Trevor.

“I’m _hungry_ ,” says Alucard.

“God, me too. Libraries should have more snacks in.”

Alucard chuckles. “I shall be sure to install a pantry down here at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“Now, I’m just saying, but for _you_ there kind of is already a pantry here,” says Trevor, nodding cheerfully at the slurry of debris and liquid pooling over the magic circle. “If you’re not a cowa-”

 

Alucard puts him in a headlock.

 

“Boys, please,” says Sypha, propping her chin on top of the book she has open and watching with great interest as the headlock quickly descends into an outright scuffle. “Behave yourselves!” she giggles, “This is a _library_ , for goodness sake.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alucard's commentary on necromancy is largely accurate - to the best of my knowledge - to the understanding of the term as per late medieval europe. the ars notoria is a real text, and it's the earliest of the books found in a grimoire known as the 'seven keys of solomon'. the grimoire was compiled quite a lot later than the date the notoria can be traced back to, & is filled with a lot of fairly flashy stuff like a big list of demons and things, but the ars notoria really is basically just prayers for improved memory... sort of. it's... a magic book, kind of, but it's a very god-driven concept of magic. it was nevertheless Highly Banned for being Heretical and also Evil - but the fact abt it being popular in universities is true lmao. people out here risking their immortal souls for grades back in the middle ages, WILD TIMES.
> 
> i'm a little snowed under with work right now and I also run a dnd campaign which takes up more of my time than it has any reasonable right to (not that i'm complaining, i love it, but still), so updates/replies to comments may be a tad slow for the next few days!! apologies.
> 
> and as always, all my love goes to every beautiful wonderful person who has left a nice comment or kudos. you people keep the world turning, tbh
> 
> EDIT: oh also I forgot to say, enochian is a dumbass fake language that John Dee a known HACK made up during the early modern era (its during the reign of Elizabeth I so... like the 1600s, which of course is later than the show is set) so really shouldn’t be included here historically speaking, but it does get mentioned in the show so I figured that in the world of Castlevania we’re gonna say that it’s a real genuine occult language and not a made up one that didn’t even exist yet lol


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains some (fairly canon-typical) slightly gory violence so!! heads up fr that. i dont think it's TOO nasty but i thought its better to warn for it just in case ^_^

“So,” says Alucard, pacing from side to side in front of the circle with his brow furrowed, “it will probably take more than simply breaking the chalk lines to fully dismantle the circle-”,

“Mmm,” says Sypha, “I mean, the chalk lines are probably already pretty blurry in a lot of places because of all the…” she waves vaguely at the debris pooled over the circle. Every so often, there’s another drip of crimson from above.

“Exactly. Still, between that and some kind of holy intervention-”

“Holy water, perhaps?” suggests Sypha.

He nods. “If we can find some. Alternatively, we might be able to do something with Trevor’s whip – perhaps if we manually break the lines and then lay the whip down the centre?”

“It’s certainly worth a try.”

“It’s a shame we don’t have a blessed sword, really. I’d imagine that taking a chunk out of the floor with a holy blade would do the trick.”

“Probably.”

 

Alucard sighs, running his hands through his hair and shaking it out down his back with a yawn. “Well, we’ll have to make do, since we don’t have one. Perhaps it’s worth looking around here a bit to see if there’s anything lying around that might fit the bill before we try to dismantle the spell?”

Sypha shakes her head. “We should do it sooner rather than later. That circle is looking a bit… glowy.”

Alucard bites his lip, staring down at the circle – which is indeed beginning to emanate a gentle reddish glow. “I hate to say it, but I suspect that Trevor had a good point about the impact of all this blood.”

“I think so. We should break it now, before anything really weird starts happening.”

Alucard nods. “You’re right. Unless- Trevor, you don’t happen to know of any holy swords that your ancestors may have left lying around, or- Trevor? Are you paying attention?”

 

“Uh… yes?” says Trevor.

 “Really? Because it looked to me like you were falling asleep.”

“Ah, I was falling asleep very attentively, though.”

Alucard rolls his eyes. “Well, if at any point you feel struck by the urge to contribute to our efforts at all-”

“He is contributing,” says Sypha, indignantly. “He’s being a very lovely chair.”

 

Which is true. Trevor has stretched himself out with his back propped up against one of the bookcases, and Sypha has settled into his lap with a pile of books. She’s been steadily leafing through the stack of texts for the past half hour or so, absent-mindedly petting Trevor’s thigh with her free hand.

Alucard, however, does not look very convinced. “I see. Clearly an absolutely essential task, that.”

“It is,” says Sypha.

“Listen,” says Trevor, “when you need me to hit something with my whip, just point me in the right direction. Until that point, I’m very happy being a chair.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.”

“Somebody sounds a little _jealous_ ,” sing-songs Sypha, with a smirk. “You know, if you stopped pacing for a moment I could sit in your lap, too.”

“I…” he looks genuinely torn for a moment, but rallies. “Maybe later. Right now, I need your chair.”

“Wait, you want to sit on me?” says Trevor, slightly taken aback but - once he’s had half a second to consider it, anyway - generally in favour of the concept.

“I- no, Belmont! I need your whip.”

“My… whip?”

Sypha snickers, and Alucard - already looking distinctly red around the ears – flushes all the way down his neck.

“For the magic circle,” Alucard splutters, slightly lamely.

 

Trevor laughs, and gently lifts Sypha out of his lap, standing up and stretching his back with a loud yawn. “Sure, sure. Alright, where do you want me?”

Alucard puts his face in his hands. “You’re fucking doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

“You-” Alucard sighs. “Just come and stand over here, alright? Sypha, I’m going to need you as well.”

“Oho,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows, “are you now?"

Now that he’s shirtless, it’s really clear just how much of Alucard’s body can blush when he gets properly flustered – which is to say, all of the visible bits. And, Trevor thinks, eyeing his waistline with some interest, probably the non-visible bits too.

 

Alucard pinches his nose, and takes a deep, careful breath, then attempts to regain control of the situation. “Alright, look, let’s just- we need to deal with this magic circle, so I want to break the chalk lines and then we can lay Trevor’s whip down the centre. It’s blessed, which means that it should hopefully disrupt the occult energies of the circle, and then… something will probably happen.” He frowns. “I’m actually not sure what.”

“A demon, probably,” says Sypha.

Trevor groans. “Why is it always demons?”

“It’s not so bad,” says Sypha, patting his arm encouragingly. “We’ve dealt with demons before. All we have to do is kill it before it makes too much more of a mess down here. Then we can focus on how to deal with our witchy friend when she re-appears tomorrow night. Simple!”

“I guess so.”

“And hey, you get to fight something!”

 

Trevor perks up at this thought, drawing Vampire Killer and rolling his shoulders, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “You know what? That bit I like the sound of.”

Sypha smiles indulgently at him. “I thought you might.”

“Alright,” says Trevor, turning to Alucard. “What do we need to do?”

“First, we need to break the chalk lines of the circle, which shouldn’t be too hard. Somebody just has to go and… wipe at the circle a bit.”

“Urgh, not me,” says Sypha, wrinkling her nose. “I’m keeping well away from that thing – I’ve had enough existential dread for one day, thank you very much.”

“And what next?” asks Trevor.

Alucard shrugs. “We put your whip down through the break in the circle and see if that does anything. If not, uh… back to the drawing board, I guess? There’s probably some holy water around here somewhere that we can use.”

 

“Hmm. Well, I don’t want to be the one who goes and puts my hand in the circle. Sypha is right; that thing gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Well _I_ certainly don’t want to touch it again,” says Alucard, “At least all you two have to worry about is the horrible feeling it gives you. I mean, I have to worry about that as well of course, but it will also ruin my hair, which-”

Trevor raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“What?! It’s a fair point, isn’t it?”

“You’re such a goof,” says Sypha, with a laugh. “But somebody has to do it, don’t they? And I said I didn’t want to first, so…”

Trevor frowns down at the circle, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Would snapping the floorboards it’s been drawn on count as breaking the circle?”

“Well, yes, but-”

 

Without any further consideration of the matter, Trevor brings Vampire Hunter down onto the magic circle with an almighty _crack_ , and the floorboards beneath shatter, splitting the chalk scrawlings neatly into two and sending blood and glass flying into the air.

“There,” he says, turning round to face Sypha and Alucard with a self-satisfied grin, “all sorted, and nobody needed to touch the circle. Now, where do I need to put the whip so that-”

Behind him, there’s a flash of light, and a roar.

“Ah,” says Alucard, with a vaguely dazed expression. “Well, it looks like the whip only needed to enter the circle for a _very_ brief amount of time in order to disrupt-”

“TREVOR, DUCK!” yells Sypha.

 

He does so, and not a moment too late. The claws that swipe over his head ruffle through the ends of his hair, but nothing else. He rolls to the side, catching sight of Sypha sparking up a fireball in the palm of her hand, and Alucard’s body shimmering for a moment as he shifts into his wolfish form. Then he wheels round to face the creature in the circle, raising his whip as he goes.

 

It is – and Trevor, who has seen a lot of pretty nasty looking demons, does not think this lightly – a very fucking ugly demon. It’s a pallid blueish-greyish sort of colour, with too many teeth and silty-yellow eyes, and it’s lanky but oddly swollen in places, with huge red veins that pulse visibly around its distended stomach, throbbing along the contours of its bulbous nose. Also, it’s covered in… spikes? It takes Trevor a moment to realise what he’s seeing; the demon’s skin is crisscrossed by hundreds of shards of glass, embedded in its skin like scales.

“Well shit,” he says, with a long, low whistle through his teeth, “you’re an ugly bastard, aren’t you?”

The demon turns its bulging yellow eyes to face him and _hisses._

Trevor grins, and cracks his whip straight across its face.

 

The demon reels back with a horrible yowling wail, and unfurls a vast pair of batlike wings, pock-marked skin stretched out between struts of bone that end in ragged, bristling spikes.

“Oh, shit,” says Trevor, as the creature flaps its wings once, twice, buffeting him backward as its gnarled, twisted feet begin to leave the ground.

“Not so fast!” yells Sypha, and Trevor catches a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, her gaze set on the demon as she flings a fireball toward it, then waves her hands in a broad arc, summoning forth a cavalcade of ice daggers straight out of thin air. She inhales, hair blowing around her face, and then points both hands toward the creature with a little huff, and the daggers fly toward its wings as though shot from a bow.

 

The impact knocks the demon backward, shrieking as dozens of glistening shards of ice tear through the papery membrane of its wings. It slams into a bookcase and snarls, rounding on Sypha, who grins, passing her hands over one another and sparking up a fireball that hovers between her palms.

“Go on, then,” she growls, grinning at the demon when it swishes its tail and lowers into a crouch as it approaches her, “Come to momma.”

The demon launches itself at Sypha – which, in fairness, is probably what Trevor would do too, if she spoke to him like that – and she waits until the last moment before ducking aside, leaving the demon to plough forward into firstly the fireball which she thrusts up into its face, and then the floor. It comes up spitting chunks of wood from the floorboards, but it barely has time to turn round before Alucard is at its throat, wolf jaws clenching around its airway. He drags the beast down to the floor again and adjusts his grip, clamping down harder and shaking his head as gouts of blood begin to spurt out from its throat.

 

The demon howls, scrabbling for purchase and then sinking its claws into Alucard’s belly and tugging him away from its neck. It holds him aloft for a moment, before flinging him against a nearby bookcase. He hits the shelves with a horrible crunching _thud_ , before dropping to the floor with a soft little whimper. As soon as he hits the floor his body shifts, morphing back into his human form with a pained grimace.

 

The demon clutches vainly at its neck, where great gouts of blood are now spraying out from between its clawed fingers, painting the surrounding area in noxious purple-red liquid. Trevor snarls, lashing out with his whip so that it strikes and coils round the demon’s throat, the tip catching in the gash Alucard’s teeth have already left. He clenches his teeth, and yanks, the metal tip of the Vampire Killer snaring in the open wound and snarling through polluted flesh as it unravels from around the beast’s neck.

 

The demon opens its mouth to howl, but the only thing that comes out is a gurgling, breathy noise as the whole front of its neck abruptly gapes open, windpipe exposed, blood gushing down its chest and pouring onto the floorboards beneath.

“You _bastard_ ,” says Sypha, pure wrath shining in her eyes, and a glittering shard of ice materialises in the air before her open palms. She motions furiously with her hands, and the shard lances through the front of the demon’s chest and out the other side in a torrent of blood and glittering flecks of ice. It gurgles once more, then its eyes roll back into its skull as it collapses slowly onto its knees, and then forward with an almighty crash face-first onto the floorboards. It gives one more pathetic wheeze, and goes still.

 

Trevor takes a moment to give it a good kick and check that it’s properly dead (it is) before he rushes over to join Sypha, who is already crouched down next to Alucard and stroking his brow.

“Darling,” she says, “there, it’s alright, we’ve got you… let’s have a look at that wound, hmm?”

“I’m fine, please, don’t worry yourself on my account.”

Trevor crouches next to Alucard and rubs his shoulder carefully. “You’re a shitty liar.”

“It really isn’t all that- SHIT! Oh, ow,” he says, wincing as Sypha gently pries his hand away from the gash in his belly.

She clicks her tongue, gently probing the edges of the ragged wound. “That’s a nasty one, isn't it? We need to get you bandaged up, I think.”

“I guess it’s lucky I wasn’t wearing a shirt, huh?” says Alucard with a slightly pained laugh, which he cuts off rather abruptly, grimacing at the movement through his stomach.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry not sorry,,, i'd already done bed sharing and mutual pining so i think hurt/comfort is WELL overdue here........ like oh no he's injured i sure hope that nobody has to TENDERLY CARE FOR HIM and give him SOFT KISSES or anything........... >:3cccc
> 
> i think there may be slightly more chapters in this than i had anticipated? i still have the same amount of Plot to get thru but i think i underestimated how long it would take to write it all down haha. i'll keep yall updated on that front. ive also written a big ol chunk of the next chapter already so hopefully that should be up not too late tomorrow!! I know yall have had to wait a couple of days for updates at times but im trying to keep them daily at least until nano is over ^_^
> 
> as ever my heart belongs to anyone who leaves comments and kudos. ur all STARS who make me very happy


	20. Chapter 20

Alucard presses his palms back over the ragged wound on his belly, closes his eyes, and tilts his head back to rest on the bookcase behind him, his alabaster throat shuddering slightly on the in-breaths. There’s a sheen of sweat over his face, his hair artfully mussed, his body all tense lines and jagged, shaking exhalations.

Trevor swallows thickly as Alucard’s tongue darts out to moisten his lips, eyelids fluttering slightly, and tries very hard to remind his dick that, wow, now is _super_ not the time. “You look like shit,” he grunts.

“Thanks. It’s really not that bad, you know.”

Trevor sighs, and reaches up to brush a lock of hair out of Alucard’s face. “Yeah? Well, let’s get you bandaged up and then we can see how you’re doing.”

Alucard chuckles weakly, leaning into the touch and glancing up at Trevor through his lashes. “You’re not actually _worried_ about me, are you, Belmont?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you too.” He gives Trevor a long, thoughtful stare, then turns his head slightly so he can press a kiss to his palm. “Mmm. In all seriousness though, I really am fine.”

“Yeah?”

“It hurts like a bitch, but it’s not deep and I heal… unusually fast. Not quite like a full vampire would, but much quicker than a human.”

Trevor grunts. “Good. I... that’s good.”

 

Sypha returns moments later with Alucard’s discarded shirt, and wastes no time in shredding it into strips for bandages. After a moment she gently nudges Alucard’s hand from his belly and he groans, reaching out to grab Trevor’s arm and tensing so hard his knuckles go white, jaw set in a grim line as Sypha delicately prods the edges of the cut.

“Shhh,” she murmurs, gently stroking his brow. “Hold on, I’m going to bandage this up and you’ll feel a lot better. I don’t have anything to stitch it with, but I think this should be fine for now. I wish I had some water to boil these bandages properly…” she frowns.

“It’s fine,” says Alucard, voice a little breathy, “I’m fairly resistant to infections. And that shirt was pretty clean.”

“Until you threw it on the floor, anyway.”

“Until- alright, yes, fair enough. Sorry.”

“Please,” she says, patting his cheek fondly, “don’t ever feel like you have to apologise to me for taking your shirt off.”

Alucard laughs at that, then winces. “Oh- god, you have to stop making me laugh. That fucking _hurts_.”

“You poor thing. Alright, I need you to lean forward a bit so I can get you properly bandaged up. Trevor, hold his shoulders, would you?”

 

After a few moments of silent concentration as Sypha wraps Alucard’s wound up, she leans forward and plants a kiss on his forehead. “Alright, all done. Now, you just sit here and take it easy for a little bit, and Trevor and I can-”

Alucard stands up.

Sypha glares at him. “What part of ‘sit here and take it easy’ did you not understand, hmm?”

He flexes his torso experimentally, and winces.  “I feel- _fuck_ \- I feel fine.”

“Alucard…”

“I’ll just walk it off. We’ve got too much to do for me to be sitting around doing nothing.”

 

“Trevor,” says Sypha, as Alucard heads over to inspect the demon corpse on the floor, “Trevor, tell him that he needs to rest.”

“Hey, if _you_ can’t make him do something, there’s no way he’s going to listen to me. Leave him to it.”

“But-”

“He’s gonna have to sit down and rest eventually. Let him work it out.”

She sighs. “I suppose so. Alucard, come here, at least let me stand with you – do you need to lean on somebody?”

“I’m fine,” he says, but he lets Sypha tug his arm over her shoulder without a fuss, leaning into her with a soft little huff of air. He nudges the demon corpse with his foot. “Look at this bastard. Just our luck that we’ve got a witch who can _read_ loose in a library full of illicit texts.”

 

“Why did my ancestors even have a bunch of books about summoning demons?” grumbles Trevor.

Alucard shrugs. “Know thine enemy, I suppose.”

“There are little notes tucked into some of them,” says Sypha, “they’re presents from some monk guy to one of the Belmonts. Some of the notes are pretty sweet, actually. Very… personal.”

“Oh,” says Trevor, “Wait, as in… _personal_ personal?”

“Yeah, they’re sort of like love letters, only they don’t say anything about dicks.”

“Do- do love letters normally mention dicks?” asks Alucard, raising an eyebrow.

Sypha shrugs. “Well, most of the ones I’ve ever gotten did. Most of the ones I’ve sent, too, now I think about it.”

“Ah. Of course.”

 

“But what was a monk doing with a book of demon spells in the first place?” says Trevor, scratching his head.

“Probably summoning demons,” says Alucard.

“That’s not very church approved, is it?”

“Neither is sending love letters to Belmonts. And yet…”

“I guess so. Huh. Weird.”

“Well,” says Sypha, with a little shrug, “it’s not all that weird if you think about it. I mean, really, an exorcism is already pretty much just a demon binding ritual - and loads of priests and stuff can do that, right? So it’s not much of a jump to think that some of them can probably do stuff like this.” She waves a vague hand at the demon corpse spread out across the floorboards.

“Exactly,” says Alucard, making his way over to one of the nearby bookcases and inspecting the spines. “You know, some sort of binding spell is probably our best bet for dealing with our witch problem too, actually. We should have a look around and see if we can find anything that seems-”

 

He leans down to reach a book and abruptly freezes, propping himself against the bookcase with a pained groan. “Fuck,” he mumbles, hauling himself upright and clutching at the bandages around his waist.

Sypha starts forward, rushing to support his arm as he steadies himself. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” he says, through gritted teeth. “Shouldn’t have bent down like that, that’s all.”

“Are you sure you-”

“Like I say, I’m fine. It’s alright as long as I don’t move too fast, or twist too much, or bend forward, or-”

Sypha gives him a very cool look, which he ignores.

 

Alucard manages to browse through the books for a few minutes without incident, but he’s leaning pretty heavily against the wall, and Sypha keeps shooting him concerned glances. And he definitely does look a little pale – or at least, paler than he normally does.

 

He’s reaching up to pull a book down from a high shelf when his legs buckle under him, and Trevor has to grab his arm to stop him from falling completely to the floor.

“Alright there?” asks Trevor, bracing himself as Alucard leans into his shoulder, breathing heavily.

“I’m-”

“No, he isn’t!” says Sypha, hands on her hips. “You aren’t, are you?”

Alucard sighs. “… no, I’m not. You’re right. Alright, put me down a second. This is… god. Shit. That really fucking hurts, actually.”

 

He lets Trevor lower him carefully down to the floor with a long sigh. “Urgh. This is so fucking embarrassing. It wasn’t even a particularly impressive demon, I just…” He shakes his head. “I just wasn’t paying attention, because I’m a huge fucking idiot, I guess.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Sypha, fretting with his bandages and trying to neaten out his hair by turns. “You got caught off-guard, that’s all. Happens to all of us sometimes.”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, cheerfully, “Did I ever tell you about how Sypha and I met? She’d been frozen into a statue because she wasn’t paying attention to what she was fighting.”

“Thanks, Trevor. That’s a really flattering-”

“I saved her life, it was pretty cool. And she was like, ‘ooh, Mr Belmont, you’re so handsome and strong’-”

“He’s lying,” says Sypha.

Alucard nods. “Obviously.”

Trevor throws his hands up in a pretence of great indignation. “Oh! Wow, well, I wasn’t going to mention that she was pulling a really stupid face when I found her as a statue, but-”

Sypha smacks his arm, and Alucard laughs, then groans softly.

 

“I swear to god,” he says, through gritted teeth, “the pair of you have to stop making me laugh, you’re going to fucking kill me here.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” says Sypha, stroking his cheek. “What do you need?”

He shrugs. “Time. I heal fast - it should only take a day or so for me to be back in fighting shape, but…”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, “not ideal if what’s-her-face the screaming witch ghost is planning to show up again... uh, tomorrow night? Tonight? What time is it, anyway?”

“Late,” says Alucard.

“Early,” says Sypha, wrinkling her nose up in clear disgust. “It must be morning by now. Urgh. Maybe some sleep would do you good?”

“I don’t have time to-”

“You don’t have time _not_ to, Alucard!”

He sighs. “I suppose. Unless…” he gives Sypha a speculative look, then shakes his head. “No.”

 

She narrows her eyes. “What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, you obviously had something to say, what-”

“Blood,” he says, tersely, avoiding eye contact, “if I… I can heal faster – a lot faster – if I have blood.”

“Ah,” says Sypha.

“But I don’t, because that bastard witch broke all my fucking casks, so there’s no point even-”

“Well, you do, though, don’t you?” she says, with a sly little grin.

“Sypha-”

She takes her hand in hers and pulls it to her neck, pressing his fingers up against her pulse. “What?”

 

“Oh,” says Trevor, suddenly realising what she means, “ _Oh_. Wait, hang on, that’s-”

“Absolutely not,” says Alucard, and his tone sounds firm, it really does. But he doesn’t take his hand away from her neck.

“No?”

“No. I’m not going to… to _drink_ from you, it isn’t… I’ll be fine. I don’t need to…” he trails off, breath coming a little ragged. Trevor doubts that’s just to do with the wound, at this point, given the way that he’s looking at Sypha. God. He really shouldn’t be finding this hot.

“Why not?”

“I’m not a monster, Sypha. I don’t go around just- just _draining_ random humans like some kind of-”

“But I’m not just some random human, am I? I’m me. And I’m offering.”

 

“I… it’s fine. You don’t need to offer me anything.”

“But I w _ant_ to,” says Sypha. “Doesn’t that make a difference?”

“It- yes, but…” Alucard takes a long, shaky breath, and turns to Trevor. “Belmont. Tell her she doesn’t need to-”

“If she’s going to do it, so am I,” says Trevor.

Alucard blinks. “You- what?”

He shrugs. “Well, she’s smaller than me, and neither of us can afford to lose too much blood right now. But between the two of us I’d imagine there’s plenty to go around, right?”

Alucard makes a very quiet choking noise. His pupils are completely blown, eyes wide.

Trevor stares down at his hands, not trusting himself to look anyone in the eye right now. “I mean, it’s just practical, really.”

 

“God in fucking heaven,” says Alucard, “the pair of you are going to be the death of me. Fine. Fine! But you have to promise me that- Sypha, listen to me for a second-”

Sypha, who is already enthusiastically unlacing her nightdress to better expose her neck, freezes. “… sorry.”

“If you feel like I’m taking too much, you have to promise to say something. And if I look like I’m losing control, you have to… you have to stop me. I don’t care how, you just have to do it. Alright?”

“Of course. I would not hesitate to set your beautiful hair on fire if you ever did something to hurt me.”

“Oh good. I’m glad.”

She beams. “Anything for you, darling.”

“And you need to both sit down for a bit after this and have something to eat. Something to drink, too, probably.”

“Beer?” says Trevor, hopefully.

“Absolutely not. Water, I should think. Maybe juice, if I can find some…”

“You’re so boring.”

“I know, I know, not wanting you to drink yourself into an early grave is just s _o_ tiresome.”

Trevor flips him off.

Alucard ignores it. “I’m serious, though, you need to sit and eat after this. I’ll fly to the kitchens and get something for you, but you have to promise to take it easy, at least for an hour or so. Both of you.”

Trevor shrugs. “Sitting around eating sounds good to me. I’m not gonna argue.”

“Sypha?”

“Sure. But you have to bring me books, and some more of those nice candies you have in the jar above the stove.”

“Of course. Also,” he says, tugging Trevor down to sit beside him, “I’m doing Trevor first.”

 

Sypha pouts. “What? No fair! How come he gets to go first?”

Alucard chuckles, pushing Trevor up against the wall and straddling his thighs. He winces slightly, clutching his waist and breathing heavily for a moment before settling himself down into Trevor’s lap. “Because he’s right- he is bigger than you. He can lose a little more blood without worrying about it.”

Then he grins, and slides a hand into Trevor’s hair, and tugs his head back until it’s rested against the wall behind him, throat exposed. “Sitting comfortably, Belmont?”

Trevor grunts. “You’re fucking enjoying this.”

“And you aren’t?”

“… just get on with it.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> this was gonna be all one chapter but i've split it into two because, uh, turns out I have a LOT to say about blood drinking! who knew!!! im only sorry that it took me this long to come up with an extremely tenuous reason why alucard would just HAVE to have a little slurp from his two totally platonic buddies in a very totally non-sexual manner that isnt at all the prelude to a threesome
> 
> ALSO IVE HIT 50K FOR NANO! *pops party popper*
> 
> big love to everyone commenting, kudosing, and reading along, i had the BIZARRE experience earlier of mentioning this fic to one of my mates and her being like 'WAIT YOU'RE THE ONE WRITING THAT??!!' which was buckwild and made me very happy. all u people reading and encouraging my Clownery are true stars tbh.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (heads up; this chapter contains blood drinking & sexually suggestive themes!!)

 

“What are you waiting for?” asks Trevor, and if it comes out slightly rough, well, he’s busy. He’s currently in the process of discovering some very interesting things about how much he likes having his hair pulled.

Alucard’s hand curls into his hair once more, tugging his head back and to the side. “Angles,” he says, vaguely. “I need a good angle, or it won’t be a clean bite.”

“Does it have to be the neck?”

Alucard shakes his head slowly, leaning back on his heels and pulling a ribbon from his pocket to tug his hair back into a hasty ponytail. “No, anywhere with easy access to the blood supply will do. The neck, the wrist, the crook of the elbow… the inner thigh, as well, actually.”

“Neck’s fine,” says Trevor, a little too quickly.

“Mmm,” says Alucard, leaning forward again as he presses his lips to the crook of Trevor’s jaw and chuckles softly, “elbow too intimate for you, Belmont?”

“Oh, I dunno… maybe if you play your cards right I’ll let you get in on some hot elbow action next time.”

“My goodness,” says Alucard, tilting Trevor’s head a fraction to the side with the glimmer of a laugh still playing around his eyes, “promises, promises. Alright, now, try to keep still.”

Trevor is about to respond, but then he feels fangs sinking into his neck and his brain goes suddenly, gloriously blank.

 

It hurts, at first, a sharp, pinching pain - but as soon as he feels it, it’s already fading away. Everything fades away. It feels like being underwater, that’s the closest thing he can think to compare it to. Like everything suddenly goes quiet, and all he can hear is his own heartbeat, and all he can feel is… god. Fuck. It’s almost impossible to describe.

 

On the infrequent occasions that Alucard had described the process of a vampire bite before, Trevor had always vaguely been left with the impression that it was sort of a… well, sort of a sex thing, to be honest. Which, alright, isn’t an _entirely_ incorrect impression, because whatever bits of Trevor’s mind are still vaguely functioning are definitely very much into any situation that involves an armful of somebody who is not only very attractive but also shirtless. He’s not an idiot. But the feeling the bite imbues in him is… complicated. It’s intimate, yes, but somehow it’s not quite in the way he’d expected; it’s not intimate like sweaty bodies and muffled gasps in the smoky back rooms of bars, or like pressing yourself up against somebody and w _anting_. It’s intimate like… already having something. The only point of comparison he really has – and he realises this with a jolt of surprise – is with the feeling he sometimes gets on very cold nights, where him and Sypha end up curled up under one blanket in the back of their shitty horse-drawn wagon, and fall asleep nose-to-nose, their arms curled around one another. And then when he wakes in the dark, bleary-eyed and only half conscious, she’s still there, still close against him; still holding on and smiling softly in her sleep.

 

The bite feels like that. Warm.

 

The world blurs, or maybe Trevor’s eyes drift closed, and everything narrows to a tiny pinprick of light, and the feeling of impossibly strong arms propping him up against the wall behind him. It’s nice, actually. Some very distant part of his brain is concerned about the fact that he’s currently totally defenceless and letting a creature of the night suck his blood directly out of his veins, but it’s a very small, quiet, out of the way sort of part. Mostly he just feels… calm. It’s nice having somebody else take care of things, just for a little while. God, that’s the best part. It’s so good not to have to be in control of anything; not even holding himself upright. Alucard is doing all of that, his chest pressed against Trevor’s, his hands pushing up against his shoulder, into the curve of his hip.

 

After a moment, Trevor mostly loses the capacity to think with anything even approaching coherence, and so he just drifts, pleasantly uncoupled from reality, until he realises that the pressure has lessened slightly on his neck, and then it’s gone entirely, and the world swims hazily back into view.

 

Alucard laps his tongue over the bite one last time, which seems to still the flow of blood, and moves to pull away - but then he hesitates, head bowed, breath still warm on Trevor’s neck. His lips press against the mark, just brushing the skin; it’s not exactly a kiss, but it’s not exactly _not_ a kiss, either.

Trevor shifts slightly, and finds he can hardly open his eyes. Everything feels heavy, like moving through water. Moving through mud, even. Treacle. He fights it for a moment, until he feels Alucard tighten the grip on his arm, around his waist.

“Stay still,” he says, his voice all soft and wrecked and desperate-sounding, “just… just. Give me a moment. Please.”

At that, Trevor grunts and lets himself go limp again, content to just listen to Alucard’s breathing as it slows down. Eventually, he gives a juddering little sigh, and leans back, drawing away from Trevor’s neck and giving him a long, careful stare.

 

He’s further away, now, and Trevor finds himself missing the contact - but he’s still so close to Trevor’s face, and he’s so… so _bright_. It’s like having a lapful of the sun. His hair is coming loose from its hastily-tied ponytail, haloed around his face all shining and gold. He looks uncertain, and a little flushed, and entirely perfect in every single way.

 

“Hello,” he says, gently reaching out a hand to cup Trevor’s cheek.

“Hi,” says Trevor, feeling all out of breath and giddy and stupid and _warm_ , right to the bottom of his stomach.

Alucard chuckles, carefully brushing a lock of hair out of Trevor’s eyes. “You doing alright there?”

Trevor grunts, trying to revive at least some sort of approximation of a thought process and, for the most part, failing. “That’s, uh… huh. Wow.”

“Mmm. It’s… yes. A little intense, I suppose.”

“A little?”

“Well-”

“I feel fucking _drunk_.”

“It’s alright,” says Alucard, stroking his cheek with the beginnings of a concerned frown darting across his brow, “it should wear off soon.”

“Hey, that wasn’t a complaint.”

“Ah.” Alucard grins wryly. “Well then. Yes, I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

 

Trevor lets himself stretch out slightly in the warmth of Alucard’s gentle gaze. Already he can feel himself coming out of the strange altered state the bite had put him in; his limbs are remembering how to move, his mind is remembering how to think and… well, there’s still the matter of Shirtless Vampire Jesus sprawled all over his lap, which is definitely disrupting at least _some_ of his regular brain functions, but he’s become pretty used to that by this point.

 

“My turn,” says Sypha, settling down on Trevor’s legs behind Alucard and tugging impatiently at his ponytail.

Trevor blinks. “Oh. Hi Sypha. I… hi. You’re here.” And, alright, so, maybe his brain is still not exactly on top form just yet. But, in fairness, he does now have two very attractive people in his lap. It’s a lot to take in.

She winks at him. “Well, of course.”

“You… you look really nice,” he says, and… urgh. He really does feel drunk; that’s exactly the kind of stupid thing that Drunk Trevor likes to say.

She rests her chin on Alucard’s shoulder, and grins in abject delight. “You’re a _mess_ , Trevor,” she says, reaching out to run her fingers over the bite mark on his neck with an indulgent little shudder. Then she grabs Alucard’s ponytail again, and tugs. “Do that to me.”

He laughs. “Did nobody ever teach you to say please?”

“No,” she says, pressing herself up against his back and gently nipping at his neck, “perhaps you’ll have to show me how, darling.”

“I, ah- _ah_ ,” he mutters, gasping as she sinks her teeth into one of the already fading hickeys on his neck. His hips buck forward involuntarily, which, given that he’s currently straddling Trevor’s lap, leads to some very… _interesting_ contact.

Sypha draws back, laughing, and kisses Alucard’s shoulder, eyes bright. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. What were you saying?”

“You,” he says, shifting his weight slightly in Trevor’s lap as he tilts his head round to face her, “are a fucking menace.”

“I know.”

“You’re so-”

“Absolutely.”

“And I-”

“Mmm.”

“God,” he says, “I’m so glad you came back.” And then he kisses her.

 

Trevor feels his breath hitch, and for a moment he doesn’t know where to look - but then he thinks, well, fuck it. If they didn’t want an audience, they wouldn’t be doing this sat on top of his fucking legs, would they? And it’s different, it _feels_ different to catching a glimpse of something he wasn’t supposed to see though an open doorway. Maybe it’s just the aftereffects of the bite, but he feels… warm, sort of. Although, now he thinks about it, that could also be to do with the fact that Alucard is _really_ getting into the kiss and practically dry humping Trevor’s leg at this point, but-

 

Sypha pulls back from Alucard, and reaches a hand up to her mouth with evident amusement. “Oh, that’s-” she licks her lip, “that’s blood, isn’t it?”

“Ah,” he says, “sorry, I, uh-”

Sypha turns to Trevor with a wicked grin. “I can _taste_ you,” she says - “here, like this,” and she leans in and presses her lips to his, still smiling.

 

Trevor is blindsided for a moment, but once he manages to pull himself together for half a second to actually respond, he’s completely unsurprised to learn that Sypha kisses absolutely fucking filthily. And he does taste it; the sharp tang of iron on her tongue, just faint but definitely there. Huh. Then she pulls back, and pins his shoulder to the wall when he tries to follow after her.

“Hey- no, hang on a second, stay there,” she says, laughing at his pout when she pushes his shoulder back into the wall again. “Listen, Trevor just to be clear - because I think that you have the social skills of a damp log and you’re _terrible_ at picking up hints - I’m doing that because I like you.”

He frowns, staring down at her hand on his shoulder. “… shoving me into the wall?”

“No, the- no! The kiss, Trevor!”

“Oh,” he says, blinking slowly. “Oh, yeah, no, I got that bit.”

“Good!”

“Right. Uh. Yeah. So…”

Sypha releases her grip on his shoulder, gently tracing her fingers down his arm until they end up hand in hand. “Can I do it again? Please?”

 

Trevor grins stupidly, happy enough that he feels like he could burst with it. “Yeah,” he says, a little gruffly, “yeah. Anytime.”

And she does, soft and sweet and syrupy, and they bump noses at least twice and neither of them can stop smiling and it’s the best kiss Trevor has ever had anyway. Or maybe it’s the joint best kiss he’s ever had, along with that first one she gave him.

 

Alucard clears his throat, and they both jump. “Not to, uh, interrupt anything,” he says, “but I’m sort of stuck in between you and, uh, I’m still actually quite injured and,” – here he winces slightly - “you’re crushing me a little and… it hurts. Um. Sorry.”

“Oh!” says Sypha. “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry, look, let me just…” she stretches backward and rolls off Trevor’s legs, flopping onto the floor with a little squeak. “There! Come over here and bite me before anyone gets too distracted.”

“ _Before_?” asks Alucard, raising one delicate eyebrow.

Trevor snorts.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she says, stretching out on the floor with a yawn. “You know, we should have done this in a bed. Your library floor isn’t very comfortable, Trevor.”

“Sorry,” says Trevor. “Wait, no- technically it’s Alucard’s library floor! Blame him!”

 

Alucard laughs, and drops his head forward onto Trevor’s shoulder. “You’re such a _bastard_.”

“Thanks.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Alucard says, “Look, uh, Belmont?”

“Mmm?” says Trevor, absent-mindedly stroking his palm up and down Alucard’s back.

“… well done.”

“Yeah?”

Alucard lifts his head and grins. “I didn’t think you’d have the balls to actually say anything to her.”

“Well, you know me. Full of surprises.”

“I suppose you are.”

 

They both stare at each other for a moment which stretches out a fraction of a second too long not to be tense, and eventually Trevor says, “You know, at this point I think it’s going to be more awkward if we _don’t_ kiss.”

“That’s your excuse? Really?”

Trevor shrugs. “Do you have a better one?”

“No,” says Alucard, leaning in with a soft little smile, “not really.”

 

Trevor decides that this one is also the joint best kiss he’s ever had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *chinhands* i uhhhh love these three very much im. so soft. 
> 
> sorry this update took a while, it was kinda tough to write & a bit outside my comfort zone and... also i was busy making my friend watch castlevania with me, lol. my quest to get all my friends into this show continues. now that nano is over i think my update schedule is gonna have to slow a bit because im working and i need to. sleep sometimes i guess lol. but hopefully i will still update every other day or so!! it just might not be daily like it has been a lot over the past month haha.
> 
> thank u, as always, to the delightful little cherubim and seraphim who leave all these tasty tasty comments and kudos, it's genuinely such a huge motivator and it makes me really happy to see people enjoying this fic!


	22. Chapter 22

“Hey,” says Sypha, after a long few minutes of very contented silence, “Trevor, hey.”

“Mmm?”

“I’ve had a thought.”

“Oh?”

She yawns, and cuddles up closer to Trevor with a soft little sigh. “I was trying to work out what it was the bite reminded me of, and I think I’ve got it.”

“What?”

“Mushrooms.”

“… what?”

“You know, because you were saying that it’s like being drunk, which is a bit true, but it’s not quite right. Because right now I mostly just feel all spaced-out and relaxed, whereas drunk me is like, super horny, you know?”

“You just made out with both me and Alucard, and your hand is currently inside my shirt,” says Trevor, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, and if I was drunk it would be inside your pants. Keep up.”

“Ah,” he says, nodding slowly, “of course. But what does that have to do with mushrooms?”

“No, no, not mushrooms. _Mushrooms_.”

Trevor gives her a blank look.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, you know. The ones that get you high.”

“… there are mushrooms that get you high?”

“Well _obviously_. Trevor, how have you been living in the woods and sleeping under trees and god knows what else for the past decade and yet you still don’t have even the most basic of mushroom knowledge?”

He shrugs. “Dunno. As far as I was aware, mushrooms come in two types; ones that won’t kill you, and ones that will. And I don’t eat any of them because I can’t tell the fucking difference.”

 

Sypha props herself up on her elbow and frowns. “Trevor, do you mean to say you’ve honestly been paying for food all this time when you could have been surviving on the endless bounties of nature?”

“Uh… yeah?”

She shakes her head, and then softly presses a kiss to Trevor’s shoulder. “Alright, so, when this is all over, I’m taking you into the nearest forest and we’re not leaving until you have at least a basic understanding of edible mushrooms. After that we’re doing berries, leaves, roots-”

“And the ones that get you high?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.”

“Nice,” says Trevor, closing his eyes again and pulling Sypha close. “Sounds like fun.”

 

She snuggles up to him and silence once more descends on the room. After a long moment, Sypha nudges Trevor’s arm and says, “Hey, I’ve got another thought.”

He yawns. “What? I’m tired.”

“It’s a good one.”

“Oh, fine. Go on then.”

“Do you think that if Alucard bites a drunk person, he would get drunk too?”

Trevor’s eyes snap open. “That _is_ a good thought. Shit.”

“What do you reckon?”

“I mean… it would make sense if he did, right?”

“Oh, that would be so funny.” She giggles, rolling over to prop the top of her body up on Trevor’s chest. “Just imagine his lanky big legs wobbling all over the place.”

“God! Him doing his whole stupid Prince of the Night shit but he keeps falling over.”

Sypha snorts. “Oh, that’s too good. We all need to get pissed some time. I want to see if he’s a giggly drunk.”

Trevor nods solemnly. “You’re right – we have to all get drunk. For science. You know, I bet he blushes loads when he drinks, too.”

 

“I bet,” says Sypha, and then she grins, tracing an idle finger along Trevor’s jawline. “So, now we can both talk about how cute he is…”

“Hey! I never said anything about him being cute.”

Sypha gives him a Look with a capital L.

“… yeah, alright, he’s cute. Carry on.”

“Ok, so, like I say, now we’re on the same page... the blushing. Can we talk about the blushing?”

Trevor groans and throws his hands over his face. “God, it’s so good.”

“It’s brilliant. He has such a good poker face, too, and then he just goes completely pink and ruins it.”

“Hey, about that,” says Trevor, rather cautiously, “uh, does…” he tails off with an embarrassed cough. “Actually, uh… never mind.”

 

“What?” says Sypha, peeling his hands away from his face with a sly grin.

“Well, I, uh…”

“Oh, look _you’re_ blushing now. Go on, what is it?”

“… doesitgoallthewaydown,” blurts Trevor. “The blush, I mean. Does it-”

Sypha laughs. “Oh, yes. Yes, of course it does.”

“Hnnft,” says Trevor, which was probably supposed to be a word at some point but he can’t for the life of him think what word it was meant to be.

Sypha kisses him, and grins. “His thighs go the most immaculate shade of pink, you know; I got a really good look when I was-”

 

The sound of soft footsteps on the floorboards makes them both jump.

“What?” says Alucard, glancing from one guilty face to another with an expression of deep – and, in fairness, totally justified - suspicion.

“Nothing,” says Sypha, in possibly the most unconvincing tone Trevor has heard from her so far.

Alucard narrows his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling that you were talking about me?”

“Because you have a huge fucking ego,” says Trevor.

“I see.”

“Yeah Alucard,” says Sypha, “it’s not all about you. We were actually talking about… um…”

“Mushrooms,” says Trevor, just as Sypha says;

“Pornography!”

They both glare at each other.

“Why would you even _say-_ ” begins Trevor.

“Well it’s more believable than-” hisses Sypha.

 

Alucard sets a hamper down beside them with a long-suffering sigh. “Ah yes,” he says, his voice laden with sarcasm, “of course. Mushroom pornography. That explains everything. Now, I have water, and I have food; I need you both to eat, and drink, and rest up a bit.”

“You’re such a mother hen,” says Sypha, shaking her head. “Here, come and lie on the floor with us.”

“Urgh, we really should have done this in a bed,” grumbles Alucard, lowering himself down with a resigned sigh and stretching out next to Sypha and Trevor. “The floor in here is… uncomfortable.”

“I don’t know,” says Trevor, cheerfully digging through the hamper and shoving an entire chunk of bread straight into his mouth, “I think that- hwuf furhg fifas-”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” says Alucard, with a disdainful sniff.

Trevor gulps. “Sorry. Anyway, like I was saying, this floor really isn’t all that bad. Honestly, I’ve full-on _slept_ on worse. I mean, at least it’s not damp down here. And nobody has vomited on me. And there aren’t any rats trying to eat my toes!”

“Jesus Christ, Belmont,” says Alucard.

“That’s… oh dear,” says Sypha.

“And I’ve got food that isn’t mouldy,” Trevor continues, shoving another wad of bread into his mouth and chewing happily. “Paradise!”

 

Alucard sighs. “Is it possible to take back a kiss? I’m having second thoughts.”

“Nope!” says Trevor, who is now munching his way through a handful of grapes with a shit-eating grin.

“Well, I want it back. I’ve decided that you don’t deserve it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my kiss now. Fuck you.”

Alucard leans over to grab Trevor by the collar and drag him into a kiss. “There,” he says, “I’ve taken it back.”

“That’s definitely not how that works.”

“Pretty sure it is, actually, Belmont.”

“Right,” says Trevor, “if that’s how we’re doing this…”

 

He hurls himself onto Alucard and manages to plant a kiss at least mostly on his lips before he gets rolled onto his back and kissed in return. The situation devolves into something that could broadly be described as roughhousing, if roughhousing also involved a lot of kissing and people making very soppy eyes at each other.

“I thought Trevor was supposed to be resting?” says Sypha, as Alucard pins him to floor with an arm to his throat and rains kisses down onto his face.

They both freeze, and Alucard reluctantly releases Trevor from his grip. “Oh, well… yes. I suppose he was.”

Sypha shakes her head fondly, and takes another bite of the apple she’s holding. “The pair of you are idiots. Do you know that?”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, plonking himself down beside her with a contented grin. “I mean, you’d have to be an idiot to like fangs over there, really, wouldn’t you?”

Alucard settles himself on Sypha’s other side. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

“Technically you just did dignify that with a response.”

“Technically I could tear your fucking throat out with my bare hands, so-”

“Technically you could only do that if you managed to catch me, which-”

 

“Technically,” says Sypha, rolling her eyes, “You’re both very lucky that you’re so handsome, or I would simply freeze both of you into little blocks of ice until you learned to play nicely with each other. Now, Alucard, where are those candies you promised me?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: ok well now nano is over im not gonna post every day!  
> me: posts an update the day after the last one anyway
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> this chap is just sorta fluffy but we should return to ur regularly scheduled plot next update. which actually WILL probs be the day after tomorrow rather than tomorrow because im busy af for the next couple days.
> 
> in other news, tumblr is totally going to the dogs, huh? wild. does anyone know of, like... an 18+ castlevania discord? or like specifically trephacard. or.. sth like that, anyway. I want to be able to continue to enjoy ot3 content but i mostly use tumblr and it seems like loads of stuff is just gonna get blitzed :/
> 
> as ever, my love and heart belong to everyone who leaves comments and/or kudos. u guys are stars and i cherish u all <3


	23. Chapter 23

Trevor wakes up with a vague sense of bleary confusion, mostly because he can’t actually remember deliberately going to sleep. His confusion only increases when he blinks his eyes open and finds himself… under a blanket? There seems to be a pillow under his head, too. Weird. He definitely doesn’t normally wake up with anything as fancy as a _pillow_.

“What the fuck?” he mumbles, frowning down at his own blanketed legs in utter bafflement.

“Not so loud,” says Alucard, who is perched on a stack of books nearby and leafing through another volume with a bored expression. “You’ll wake Sypha.”

Trevor glances to his left where, sure enough, Sypha is sprawled on the floor, snoring softly. She also seems to have acquired a pillow and a blanket. Huh. “What-” he begins.

Alucard sighs. “You both dozed off once you’d had something to eat. I figured that perhaps you needed the rest, so…”

“Oh, any you didn’t? After having your guts rearranged by a fucking demon-”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Alucard massages his temples and shakes his head slowly. “Don’t word it like that.”

“Why not?”

Alucard rolls his eyes, and returns to his book.

 

Trevor sits up, gently extricating himself from Sypha’s grip. She mumbles something in her sleep that sounds suspiciously like ‘fight me’, her brow wrinkling into a furious little scowl. Then she rolls over onto her back, tugging softly at the blankets and making soft little noises for a moment before slowly settling down. After a minute or two, the snoring starts again. Trevor smiles, and carefully reaches out to tuck a lock of hair back behind her ear. And he thinks, suddenly; it’s been too long. It’s been too long since he’s used his hands for delicate things. It’s been years of fighting and drinking, hands on the pommel of his whip or the hilt of his sword, grasping splintery wood handles of shitty pub tankards, hauling himself up trees or onto stone walls. As a child – before everything went to shit, anyway – he’d had soft hands, like any other Lord’s son would, and everything he did was soft, too. He’d had toys, and books, and he’d sat and learned to spin yarn with his sisters and the serving-women because they told the best stories in the house (and because they always brought him cakes). And hunting – even the hunting was a soft sort of violence, really, all fine leather saddles and suede-lined gloves for falconry.

 

He strokes Sypha’s forehead, and she murmurs softly in her sleep, and he thinks… and he thinks that maybe he could get used to life being soft again.

 

“You realise that watching a lady sleep is generally considered impolite, don’t you, Belmont?” says Alucard, jolting Trevor out of his reverie.

“Oh, right, and I guess you watching us _both_ sleep wasn’t weird at all, huh?”

“That’s different,” says Alucard, licking his thumb as he goes to turn another page of his book, “it’s not weird when vampires do it. That’s just common sense.”

“You talk some real shit, sometimes.”

“I most certainly do not. Ask anyone you like. It is the god-given right of a vampire to watch people sleeping, that’s a perfectly well known fact.”

“No it isn’t!”

“I think you’ll find it is.”

Trevor shakes his head slowly. “You’re such a fucking weirdo.”

“Thanks.”

 

“So, uh, what’s with the blankets and stuff?” asks Trevor, once it becomes clear that Alucard really has turned his attention back to the book he’s reading.

“What about them?”

“Well, did you-”

“Obviously.” Alucard goes distinctly pink, and refuses entirely to look up from his book. “I’m sure it’s all fairly self-explanatory. You both looked… well, it’s cold down here. I didn’t want anyone to catch a chill.”

“Oh.”

“It seemed prudent. You’re both so fragile, compared to my kind. And I am,” he blushes slighty, “I am… grateful that you both agreed to, ah. To aid me.”

“You can just admit that you like us. You do realise that, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure all the cards are on the table now, so-”

“I know. But I didn’t find you blankets because I _like_ you. I did it because it’s the decent thing to do. Some of us have manners, you know.”

Trevor contemplates this for a moment. “I’m not used to having people put blankets over me when I pass out on floors. Normally I just get kicked if I’m lucky, and vomited on if I’m not.”

“Well, get used to it,” says Alucard, and then, “Christ, Belmont, every time you talk about your life you make me feel bloody miserable. Has nothing good ever happened to you?”

 

Trevor glances down at Sypha’s sleeping form, then back up at Alucard. “Well… one or two things.”

Alucard abruptly slams his face into the open book he’s holding with a pained sounding groan. “Urgh! God, how are you so…”

“What?”

He shakes his head, clearly struggling to find the right words. “Almost everything that comes out of your mouth is just so inveterately stupid and ridiculous, and then every now and again you manage to say something that’s just… I don’t know.”

“So… what _would_ you like to see coming out of my mouth?” says Trevor, with a sly grin.

“Trevor.”

“Yes?”

“One of these days I’m going to strangle you, and nobody will be able to blame me for it because it will be thoroughly fucking deserved.”

 

Trevor shrugs, standing up and tugging his blanket around his shoulders like a big cape. “Whatever you’re into, I guess.”

“That’s not what I…” Alucard trails off, his expression turning suddenly thoughtful. “Uh, not… what I meant… although…”

Trevor snorts. “Wait, seriously?”

Alucard gives him a withering glare, which is only slightly marred by how outrageously pink he’s gone. “Shut up.”

Trevor raises an eyebrow at that, but says nothing.

 

There’s a rather awkward pause where they both try to surreptitiously look one another up and down without making eye contact.

“I just can’t believe you’re a _Belmont_ ,” blurts Alucard, after a long moment. “It’s so embarrassing.”

Trevor tugs the blanket closer around his shoulders and raises an eyebrow. “Oh, so, me being a Belmont is embarrassing, but you having a fucking aneurism over the concept of getting your sweaty little vampire hands round my neck isn’t?”

“That’s not- I wasn’t-”

“Weren’t you?”

Alucard lowers his head slowly into his book, and whines softly. “This is the worst.”

Trevor laughs. “You’ll live, I’m sure.”

“I will,” says Alucard, with a dramatic sigh, “but at what cost?”

“Ah,” says Trevor, giving him a cheerful slap on the back, “the cost is that you have to put up with me, of course.”

 

“I’m not _putting up with you_ , idiot,” says Alucard, carelessly tossing his book aside and flinging his arms over Trevor’s shoulders, “I’m really fucking glad you’re here.”

“Yeah?” says Trevor, slightly taken aback by the sudden sincerity of Alucard’s tone.

“Yes. You-” he glances over at Sypha, still snoring softly on the floor, “both of you, are… I missed you. You remind me to be human.”

“… in what sense?”

Alucard laughs. “In a surprisingly literal one; I spent most of the time while you two were travelling as a wolf.”

“You-” Trevor frowns. “Why?”

“It’s a little hard to explain, but I- hmm. Think of it like this; a wolf is a lot simpler than a man. A wolf is content if it is fed, and if it can sleep somewhere warm. There’s a… clarity to it, I suppose. Something pure. Something a little simpler than…” He sighs, leaning in to rest his head on Trevor’s shoulder. “A wolf doesn’t _feel_ like a man feels. And I was so tired of… of feeling. Of hurting. I don’t know.”

Trevor pulls him closer, and holds on as tight as he can, pressing a fierce kiss to the top of his head. And he says nothing, because he’s always been better at doing than saying – but Alucard seems to understand.

 

“You two, you-” Alucard lifts his head from Trevor’s shoulder and looks him in the eye, all fierce blazing intensity, “You remind me that it’s not all bad. Feeling things.”

“Huh. Yeah, sometimes it’s… pretty good.”

“Sometimes,” says Alucard - and then he leans in and kisses him, soft as anything, and when he pulls back he’s smiling, just a little.

“… so does this mean you’re going to start being actually polite to me now?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, good. Because that would be super weird.”

 

Alucard throws his head back and laughs. “Oh, so that’s where you draw the line? Me drinking your blood? Not weird. Us kissing? Not weird. The fact that I turn into a fucking wolf to avoid dealing with my emotions? Totally normal, nothing to see here! But the concept of somebody being fucking _polite_ to you-”

“No, ok, it’s specifically you being polite to me-”

“That’s where you draw the line?”

“Yeah!”

“I… why?”

“Listen,” says Trevor, pulling himself up to his full height and re-arranging his blanket-cape with great dignity, “I have to draw it somewhere, don’t I?”

Alucard laughs again at that, and almost trips himself up as he goes stumbling backward over the book he’d abandoned on the floor.

 

Trevor gives him a thumbs up. “Smooth. Very suave. Real sexy Prince of the Night vibes, there.”

“Bastard.”

“Motherfucker.”

“Imbecile.”

“Oh, _I’m_ the imbecile?” says Trevor, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course. You’re the imbecile, and I’m the… what did you call me? I’m the sexy Prince of the Night.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who just tripped over something that I myself left on the fucking floor.”

Alucard glares.

“So, did you find anything in any of those books, or are you just sort of leaving them around so you can trip over them in an extremely sensual and not at all hilarious way?”

 

Alucard rolls his eyes. “You’ve got me. That’s my secret kink; I love tripping over things and looking like an idiot.”

“I knew it!”

“Yep. You found my dark secret. Whatever will I do. In answer to your question, though – yes, I’ve made some rather interesting progress while you and Sypha were sleeping.”

“Oh?

“I have an idea of where our ghostly intruder might have originated from. Or, rather, an idea of what might have let her loose.”

“Yeah? What was it?”

“This might be easier to explain if you come with me,” says Alucard, moving to step around the nearest bookcase. “It’s not far from here.”

 

Trevor glances back at Sypha, still sleeping, golden curls swirling around her head on the pillow like a halo. “Should we wake her?”

“I can’t bear to,” says Alucard, his gaze tender. “She’s so…”

“Yeah.”

“And she probably needs the rest.”

“I guess she does.”

 

They both stand there for a long moment, gazing fondly at Sypha’s sleeping form. Then Alucard says, “Also, uh… I think she’s probably going to be pretty mad when I show her what I found.”

Trevor narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Well,” says Alucard, carefully inspecting his perfectly manicured nails for invisible specks of dirt, “I think I may have, uh… inadvertently sort of… caused the whole ghost witch problem, actually.”

“You w _hat?!_ ”

“Look,” says Alucard, taking Trevor gently by the hand and tugging him over toward the next aisle of bookcases, “just come and see, I’ll explain when we get there. Alright?”

 

Trevor looks down at their joined hands, and grins quietly to himself. And then, because he doesn’t want to let himself get _too_ soppy, he says, “Alright, you can tell me now – is this all actually an elaborate excuse to get me in a dark corner and show me your dick? Because-”

“Shut the fuck up, Belmont.”

“Fair enough.”

 

Alucard glances over his shoulder and winks. “… maybe later, though.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT, SO... following my quest to find an 18+ castlevania discord: I found one! I'm not gonna post a link here but I will ask a mod if it's ok to direct y'all toward them so that you can go ask for links to join ^_^ hopefully I can let you know about that in the notes of my next update!!
> 
> as ever... sweet tender commenters and leavers of kudos......... as justin beiber once said; 'you have my love, you have my heart'..................... *blows u kisses*


	24. Chapter 24

Trevor surveys the wreckage of several cabinets and a bookcase with a low whistle. “You did this?”

Alucard sighs. “I- the short answer is no.”

“And the long answer?”

“Uh, the long answer is that I… didn’t do it on purpose?”

 

“You didn’t do it on purpose?” laughs Trevor, carefully picking what look like fragments of a bear skull out of the wreckage of one of the cabinets, “Well, go on then, how did you manage that - you sleepwalked into the shelves?”

“No, I- do you remember me mentioning the traps down here?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I set one off near here and...” Alucard gestures vaguely at the wreckage.

“So it just smashed a bunch of stuff? Weird trap.”

“No, it, uh… flung me into the cabinets. And I sort of hit the bookcase on the way there.”

 

Trevor snorts, trying to rein in his laugh at Alucard’s embarrassed expression. “Ha! Sorry, sorry, just… the image of you just going flying through the air and landing on your ass is too good.”

“I’m glad my pain amuses you.”

“It’s more your indignity that amuses me, actually.”

Alucard grins. “Wow. Thanks.”

 

“But, uh, hilarious as all this is… what does it have to do with the ghost witch lady?”

“Mmm. Good question. So, as it turns out, I don’t think that this trap was originally meant to hurl intruders into cabinets.”

“That makes sense, because you kinda trashed everything over here when you landed on it. And it didn’t even kill you! Shitty trap.”

“Indeed. Come over here.” Alucard beckons Trevor toward an unremarkable looking cupboard a few feet away from the broken remnants of cabinet on the floor. “Now- hang on, watch your step. I don’t think it will activate if you step on it, since you’re a Belmont, but better safe than sorry.”

“Don’t think _what_ will activate?”

 

Alucard hunkers down just to the side of the cupboard, squinting at the patch of floor in front of it. “Look, there. Do you see?”

Trevor squats down next to him. “See what? Oh, wait- the bit where there’s no dust? That’s weird.”

“If you look really closely, you can just about make out a sigil on the floor there. It’s a sort of… think of it as a magical pressure plate.”

“And that’s what you stepped on?”

“Indeed. At which point I was thrown backwards-”

“Squealing like a stuck pig-”

“It was actually a very dignified squeal-”

“And then you landed on your arse-”

“On the cabinet, actually-”

“Yeah, but also on your arse.”

 

Alucard sighs. “Yes. Fine. Also on my arse. Are you happy?”

“Yup!” grins Trevor.

“The cabinet part is actually the important bit, though. If you have a look at the wall over here, where the cabinets were…” Alucard stalks back over to the wall.

“Before you crashed into them, yeah.”

Alucard ignores him. “Look. Over here; there’s a hidden door in the wall – if you look really closely you can see where the stone joins up. So as far as I can tell, the intention of the trap is that, if somebody deemed… not Belmont-y enough, I suppose… steps on the plate, a magical blast is activated, which throws them through the trap door.”

“And what’s inside the trap door?”

“No idea. Sort of glad that I didn’t find out the hard way, actually.”

“That’s fair. So the cabinets sort of… got in the way?”

“Exactly. They were right in front of the door. I had a look afterwards and I think that the trap itself is pretty old – probably it was installed when the library was built, actually. The cabinets, on the other hand, are fairly new. Perhaps seventy or eighty years old. So whoever installed them obviously didn’t think about the fact that their presence would fuck up the trap.”

“Huh.”

“Idiocy clearly runs in your family, Belmont.”

“Hey!” says Trevor, and then, “Wait, so… hang on, I still don’t see what all this has to do with the witch?”

 

“Ah,” says Alucard, “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? It seems that when I landed on the cabinet I may have broken a few bits and pieces.”

“No kidding,” says Trevor, nudging a splintered piece of shelf off the shattered remnants of large Grecian-looking urn with his foot. “You hit this at speed, huh?”

“Just a bit. Anyway, I didn’t really take a good look at the stuff I’d broken when I sprung the trap, but it was the evening after that particular incident that the wailing started, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, so you think that there was something in the cabinet which-”

“Which probably shouldn’t have been broken. Yes. So, while you and Sypha were sleeping I had a bit of a dig through the shit on the floor here, and I found… this.” He lifts what appears to be the shattered remains of a thick dark-glass… bottle? Jar? It’s not exactly clear. There are swirling runic inscriptions etched into the base, and curling up around the sides. There appears to be a little liquid still in it, laden with a swirling sediment of dried herbs and powders and… is that a bird skull?

 

Trevor eyes the object with a very healthy dose of suspicion. “The fuck is that?”

“Good question. Well, I had a look at some of the symbols around the outside, and it seems to be a binding spell of some sort- or, well, _part_ of a binding spell, now.”

“Ah.”

“One that might effectively contain, say, a spirit of some kind-”

“Oh dear.”

“Quite.”

 

They both stare at the shattered jar for a couple of seconds. After a moment, Alucard sighs and shakes his head. “So, there you have it. I let a ghost witch loose in the library because I didn’t notice a really very obvious trap, and now she’s got into the necromancy books and is trying to smash through into my house and do… god knows what. Kill us all, probably. That seems like the sort of thing that a vengeful spirit might like to do, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. Not an ideal situation.”

“That’s putting it rather mildly.”

“I dunno,” says Trevor, with a shrug, “I mean, yeah, it sucks that it happened but it’s good we’ve figured out where she came from. Now that we know that, we’re a hell of a lot closer to finding out a way to put her back, right?”

“I… yes. I suppose I didn’t think about it like that.” Alucard tilts his head, fixing Trevor with a baffled stare. “You’re not going to ridicule me even slightly for being directly responsible for our current problems?”

 

Trevor considers this for a moment. “Nah. I’m pretty sure whoever put these cabinets in front of that trap door is the real culprit here, anyway. What kind of idiot puts a breakable jar full of witch ghost juice in the way of a trap door that’s designed to have vampires thrown at it?”

“A Belmont, apparently.”

“Well, there you go. And, come to think of it, whoever decided to trap a dangerous spirit in a glass jar in the first place has quite a lot to answer for!”

“… also, presumably, a Belmont.”

Trevor throws his hands in the air. “See? It’s not my fault that I’m an idiot! It’s a longstanding family tradition.”

 

Alucard is still wheezing with laughter when Sypha comes shuffling round the corner, her blanket thrown around her shoulders and trailing off behind her like the train of a very warm but very fancy gown. “Oh!” she says, catching sight of Trevor, who still has his own blanket swathed around his shoulders “look, we’re blanket buddies!” She flaps her blanketed arms at him with delight.

Alucard puts his head in his hands and sighs. “And this is where I have chosen to place my affections,” he mutters, apparently mostly to himself. “Extraordiary.”

Trevor ignores him, and grins over at Sypha, flapping his arms at her in return. “Blanket buddies!” he cheers, pulling her into a bear hug when she runs up to him. “Sleep well?”

“Well, the floor is never a great place for a nap, but it wasn’t so bad.” She hums contentedly, snuggling closer to Trevor with a grin. “Oh, I like this blanket hug. This is the toastiest of cuddles.”

He kisses her forehead.

Sypha tilts her head up and presses her mouth to his. “Urgh,” she says, drawing back a little and wrinkling her nose. “You have the worst sleep breath, Trevor.”

“So do you.”

She kisses him again. “Stinky.”

“Thanks.”

 

She sticks her tongue out at him, then turns to Alucard. “Hey, come and join us in the blanket huddle!”

“No.”

“Come on, you know you want to.”

“I really don’t.”

She wiggles her eyebrows at him. “Come and be a blanket buddy with us and I’ll give you a kiss.”

“Oh?”

“If you ask nicely, I’ll even let you choose where I put it.”

 

Before he can say anything in response to that, Sypha frowns, suddenly seeming to take in the wreckage of the cabinets all around them. “Hang on. Why is there all this…” she narrows her eyes. “You two had better not have been fighting while I was asleep.”

“We weren’t fighting,” says Trevor.

“Then why have you broken all this stuff?” she says, extricating herself from the blanket snuggle so that she can wave her hand at the debris scattered all around them.

“That wasn’t me. It was Alucard. And, technically, it wasn’t even really his fault.”

Sypha turns to Alucard, hands on her hips. “What have you-”

“It was an accident!”

She raises an eyebrow.

“And it happened before you two even got here.”

She lowers the eyebrow, and then raises it again, slightly higher than before. “Uh-huh?”

 

Alucard sighs. “Alright, so, let me explain…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've asked a mod abt the discord sitch, & am just waiting on a reply, but I'm pretty sure I should be able to point y'all to the server I found soon! I will keep u updated <3
> 
> i say it every chapter & but yall know i mean it with all my heart - everyone who leaves comments and kudos is helping to power the arcane rune that protects my phylactery from disturbance by intrepid adventuring types! i love u


	25. Chapter 25

“You know what this is like?” says Trevor, tugging the splintered remains of a shelf out of the pile of wreckage on the floor and hefting it over his shoulder. “It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. Only instead of a haystack, it’s the shattered remnants of my family heritage, and instead of a needle it’s bits of glass from a fucking cursed jar that used to have a witch in-”

“Technically the jar itself isn’t cursed,” says Sypha, plucking a shard of glass from the debris under her feet and holding it carefully up to the light for inspection before adding it to a growing pile on the floor,  “in fact, it probably had a blessing or two on it. You know, to keep the evil spirit inside?”

“Same fucking difference,” grumbles Trevor. “How many more bits of glass do we even need to find?”

“Well, we need to find all of the bits of the jar, so… a lot, probably.”

Trevor groans. “This is the worst.”

 

“I will admit,” says Alucard, running a hand through his hair with a long sigh, “that this is not the most glamorous task we’ve ever undertaken. But if we can reconstruct the symbols used on the jar, we’ll hopefully be able to use them to re-bind the witch. Or, uh, Sypha will, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just really fucking boring. Maybe we could go look for some more magic circles; I’d take fighting another demon over this bullshit any day.”

Alucard chuckles. “I think we’re all out of magic circles for now. But I’ll be sure to let you know if I find any other opportunities for you to show off.”

 

“Talking of demons,” says Sypha, riffling through a pile of pottery shards with a careful frown, “how is your injury doing? Do you need-”

Alucard grins. “Come and see.”

Sypha is across the room in the blink of an eye, helping him untie the bandages around his waist. Or, rather, she’s very obviously feeling him up under the vague pretence of ‘helping’. Alucard doesn’t seem to mind too much - or at all, if the soppy look he’s giving her is anything to go by. “Oh,” she says, her expression sobering slightly as she gently pulls bandages away from his skin, “oh, that’s… quite a lot of blood. Are you-”

Alucard tugs the rest of the bandages away, scrunching them up into his palm. Most of the lower half of his torso is smeared with dried blood – it looks pretty gory, actually, until he scrubs hastily at it with the crumpled up bits of bandage, revealing… nothing. Trevor blinks. From this distance, there’s no sign of a wound at all. Just blood, already dried, and easily wiped away.

 

Gently, Alucard pulls Sypha’s hand toward him and says, “See? All gone.”

She traces her palm along the muscles of his stomach, eyes wide. “Oh! It’s-”

“Healed up. Yeah.”

“That’s…” she traces her fingers over the muscles, shaking her head in amazement. “Incredible. So fast! And from such a nasty wound to this – I mean, if I didn’t know that you’d been injured I would hardly be able to tell.” She shakes her head again, clearly astonished.

“Ah, well,” he says, looking slightly bashful. “You and Trevor helped me out a bit with this one; it would have taken a day or two to reach this point, otherwise.”

“Still!” says Sypha, “what an incredible thing to be able to do. I wonder if…” She crouches down slightly, gently prodding Alucard’s torso, her nose almost touching him as she leans in for a closer look. “Fascinating! I can just about see where the claws…” she trails off, drawing a finger through the thin sheen of blood still obscuring Alucard’s skin. “Yes, this is where it was. It’s sealed itself incredibly well, hasn’t it? Hardly any scar tissue at all.”

“Mmm. Yes. That should clear itself up, too, with a little time.”

 

Sypha straightens up, scanning her eyes over his torso and trailing her hand upward to run her fingers along his collarbone. “But look, you’ve gone and healed up all my lovely marks, too,” she says, with a disapproving shake of her head; “and they were so pretty to look at.”

“I apologise, my dear Sypha, but I don’t exactly have a choice in the matter.”

“Well,” she says, pouting up at him, “I suppose not… Still.”

He grins. “You’ll just have to make some more, I suppose.”

“I suppose I will just _have_ to do that,” she says, eyes lighting up. “You know, because they were so very nice to look at.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe Trevor would like to help me,” says Sypha, glancing back over her shoulder to wink at him. She gives him an appraising glance up and down, arms still curled around Alucard’s waist. “Or perhaps you would like some of your own, hmm?”

 

Trevor blinks, looking up from the shard of glass he’s inspecting to stare at Sypha (grinning shamelessly), and then Alucard (also grinning, but in bright red). Eventually he says, “Uh… can I… is both an option?”

“Well, of course,” giggles Sypha. “I mean, that is pretty much what’s going on with this whole…” she gestures vaguely between the three of them, “you know, this whole thing, right? _Both_ is definitely an option.”

“Yeah?”

“It always is. That’s the most important thing you can learn in life, I think.”

“Huh,” says Trevor. “I- yeah.”

 

He looks back down at the piece of glass in his hands, feeling the warmth of her gaze even when he’s looking away. Then he shakes his head, and laughs. “Alright, but what about the time a couple weeks back that we were at that inn, and you made me chose between having ale and having desert? If you can always have both, how come you wouldn't let me-”

Sypha rolls her eyes. “That was because you had spent pretty much all of our money buying ‘magic beans’ from that crazy old lady outside of town.”

“Now, in fairness to me-”

“Trevor, I do not _ever again_ want to hear your explanation of why or how that purchase at any point seemed to you like a good idea.”

 

Alucard holds a hand up, visibly fascinated. “No, no, don’t stop him, I want to hear this.”

“It was an investment!”

Sypha throws her hands in the air, and stalks back off toward the wrecked cabinets to carry on the search for glass shards. “I cannot! I cannot hear this story again and retain my sanity.”

“Then cover your ears,” says Alucard; “because I want to hear it.”

Sypha glares at him. “You are encouraging him!”

“Absolutely. Go on, Trevor. Tell me about your investment in magic beans.”

 

“Alright,” says Trevor, “so, I want to preface this by saying that at the time I didn’t realise that the money I had with me was pretty much all of our money. And I’d had a few ales.”

Alucard nods. “Strong start, Belmont, strong start. Carry on.”

“Thank you. I do try. So, there I was-”

“- drunk off his ass at eleven in the morning!”

“Yeah, alright, well, I would say it was more like tipsy, Sypha, but anyway. I’m standing with the wagon outside of some shitty middle-of-nowhere town we’d stopped in, waiting for Sypha to come join me. And then this old lady comes up to me. And she offers to sell me some magic beans.”

“I see,” says Alucard.

“So I bought them.”

“… right.”

“Yeah, I spent pretty much all our money on magic beans.”

 

Alucard stares at him blankly. “Wait, is… is that it? That’s the story?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“They weren’t _magic beans_ ,” grumbles Sypha, dropping another shard of glass into the growing pile they’ve collected. “They were just regular beans. And not even enough to make a stew with or anything!”

“I don’t know why,” says Alucard, steepling his fingers and regarding Trevor with a slight shake of the head, “but somehow I expected an explanation that would make you look _less_ stupid.”

“Yeah, but,” says Trevor, “here’s the thing, I knew she was a scammer.”

“… how does that make you look less stupid? If anything-”

“Because I was scamming her back! See, if you buy magic beans, what can you do with them?”

“Again,” says Sypha, “they were not magic beans. Just regular beans.”

“Right! But if you have a bean, and you plant a bean, what do you get?” Trevor claps his hands together. “ _More beans_! Think about it! Infinite potential profit. You just keep growing beans, and planting them, which in turn makes more beans. Boom.”

 

Alucard and Sypha both stare at him.

“Congratulations, Belmont,” says Alucard, rather faintly, “you’ve invented farming.”

“Alright, look, like I say, I’d had a few-”

“What are you apologising for? You’re only a few thousand years behind the curve on this one.”

Trevor snorts. “It was, uh… not my finest hour, I’ll give you that.”

 

Alucard flops down onto the floor between them with a chuckle. “And dare I ask what your finest hour _was_ , Belmont?”

“You know, I like to believe that it’s still ahead of me. And that it involves a lot of good mead and attractive women.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow.

“… alright, and attractive men. Attractive people in general. Also, I want to fight a lion. But, like, a demon lion. With three heads! And hands, for punching with, and a really cool sword that I can keep when I win.”

“What fascinates me about this, Trevor, is that I actually can’t tell if you’re envisioning an orgy here, or a gladiatorial showdown.”

Trevor scratches his head. “Well, it’s an hour, right? So I can probably fit a few things in.”

Alucard turns to Sypha at that with a look of sheer disbelief. "Are you hearing this?"

She makes a non-committal gesture, and shakes her head in disapproval. “I told you that asking him about the magic beans would only encourage him.”

“It’s a perfectly valid point,” grumbles Trevor, turning over another fragment of shelf and scanning the floor for further shards of glass. 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo! so, for those of you who have been looking for an 18+ castlevania discord - if you message @shaerrah on tumblr, she's one of the mods & can link you to the server ^_^
> 
> would be great to see some of yall there!!
> 
> I've also signed up for pillowfort but im still waiting on a key, so idk what my url will be yet lmao. ill let ya know once it's up and running!
> 
> as ever, comments and kudos help keep the foul ichors which sustain me pumping around the wretched necromantic chamber where my phylactery is stored!! thank u all <3


	26. Chapter 26

It takes perhaps three or four more hours to dig out all the shards of glass from amongst the scattered debris on the library floor. Trevor also manages to assemble the remains of an entire bear skull and three-quarters of a very fancy china plate, although neither Sypha nor Alucard appear to be particularly impressed by his achievements. Possibly because he spent more time looking for bits of bear skull than bits of glass, but, frankly, the bear skull is quite simply a cooler item and they should both respect that truth.

 

Once they have the pieces of the jar together, Alucard scoops them into the hamper he’d used to carry food down earlier, and runs a hand through his hair.

“Alright,” he says, “so, I want to take some of the liquid we found in the jar up to my mother’s lab to see if I can work out what it is. The process may be a little time-consuming, so I suggest that you two perhaps take the opportunity to get some real sleep while I work.”

Trevor yawns. “We’re not gonna complain about that.”

Sypha elbows him. “Yes we are! We’re not going to sleep again while there’s still things to be done. Can’t we help you out in the lab?”

“Not really,” says Alucard, with a shrug. “It’s not exactly something that requires more than one pair of hands. Besides, I’ll be faster working on my own without any… distractions.”

 

Sypha smirks. “Oh? I thought you enjoyed my distractions.”

“Well…”

She slaps his shoulder cheerfully. “Excellent, it’s decided. Me and Trevor will come to the lab with you.”

 

And so they do. It’s not too bad, actually – they still have their blankets with them, and there’s a chaise in one corner that Alucard points out once Trevor starts to get whiny about not having anywhere comfortable to sit.

“Mother used to nap in here, sometimes,” he says, smile soft as he lifts a test-tube up to eye level and taps it gently, “if she was working on something that couldn’t be left for long. Father insisted on putting the chaise in here, so she could at least have somewhere to lie down. It’s comfortable. I used to sit on it and read a lot, as a child.”

“And she told you to go outside and stop being such a little nerd, I hope?” says Trevor, flopping down onto the chaise with a yawn.

Alucard laughs. “No. Although funnily enough, she _was_ always trying to persuade me to be a little more interested in sports.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Not at all. She felt that it would be healthy for me to have an activity that got me to socialise with other children my age, rather than spending all my time with my tutors or in my room.”

“Ah,” says Sypha, who is busily inspecting one of the tables of strange spinning implements with evident fascination, “so you were a loser. That explains a lot.”

 

Alucard chuckles. “I was certainly a rather introverted child. You know, there are some pictures of me in here that are going to make you laugh a lot, I think. Over on the side table, there. I had fantastic ringlets until the age of… I’m not sure… ten? Eleven?”

Sypha darts over to the side table he’s gesturing at, which is host to several framed portraits. “Oh my goodness,” she says, as she picks one of the ones near the front up, “look at you!”

“I know. I know. Is that the one with the velvet waistcoat?”

“It is! Oh, you were _adorable_. Trevor, look at this, isn’t he just the sweetest little thing?”

 

Sypha comes to perch on the end of the chaise, and holds a framed portrait out toward Trevor. “Look!”

He hauls himself into a sitting position and stifles a laugh once he gets a good glance at the little figure in the portrait. Alucard can’t be more than six or seven in this one, with ringlets down to his shoulders and an extremely frothy little cravat that he appears to be drowning in. His eyes are wide, and pale, and absurdly sombre. He’s seated, clutching a toy boat in his lap with chubby childish hands.

Alucard peers over Trevor’s shoulder at the portrait. “I loved that boat,” he says. “One of my father’s friends made it for me.”

“Do you still have it?”

Alucard shakes his head. “When my baby teeth fell out we put them in the boat and gave them a Viking funeral in the big bathing pool downstairs. Father was complaining about ash in the water pipes for _weeks_. And teeth, actually; turns out that they don’t burn very well.”

“You… what?”

“Godbrand was always a very strange man. Did you ever have an uncle who seemed to be very cool when you were a child, and then when you grew up you realised that he was actually slightly sad and pathetic? That was him. I wonder how he’s doing nowadays; I didn’t see him when we were fighting our way through the castle, so maybe…” He shrugs. “Well, who knows. Perhaps he’s still out there, building boats and drunkenly wrestling bears.”

“That doesn’t sound sad and pathetic to me,” says Trevor. “That sounds cool.”

Alucard rolls his eyes, heading back toward the table of test tubes and spinning machines that he’s been tinkering with. “You _would_ think that, Belmont.”

 

“What about the outfit?” asks Sypha, heaving the hamper onto one of the cleaner tables and beginning to unload shards of glass.

“What about it?”

“Do you still have it?”

“Probably, somewhere around the castle. They kept a lot of my old things. Lord knows why – sentiment, I suppose.” He sighs, staring blankly down at the test tube in his hands. “Which, retrospectively, is… a strange thing to think about.”

 

“Sorry,” says Sypha, reaching out to squeeze his hand, “I didn’t mean to bring up anything… I don’t know. I didn’t mean to bring up a sensitive subject. I was only thinking that, you know, if there is adorable miniature clothing in the castle… and also an adorable miniature puppy… well. It would be remiss of me not to at least _suggest_ that we dress him up a little bit. Right?”

Alucard laughs. “Ah, of course. And you needn’t worry, this- this whole fucking castle is a sensitive subject waiting to happen, isn’t it? I mean, this room alone is…” he shakes his head. “It’s a lot.”

“Too much?”

He shrugs, lifting another test tube up to eye level and squinting at the viscous liquid within. “It is what it is. This is the only place in the castle that has the equipment I need to run these tests.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I know.” He sighs, putting the test tube down and coming to sit on the end of the chaise near Trevor. “Oh god. How do I feel about being in here? It’s complicated, I suppose. I spent a lot of time in here as a child, I have… so many memories. And they’re happy memories! But…”

“But the happy memories make you sad, sometimes,” says Trevor, “right?”

 

Alucard flops down onto Trevor’s chest, and presses a kiss to the edge of his jaw. “Christ, Belmont, you’re not allowed to start being the emotionally sensitive one. It’s too confusing for me to deal with.”

“Oh, alright. Fuck you, then.”

“That’s more like it.”

“Glad I could help.”

 

Alucard stands, and stretches out with a sigh. “You’re right, though. The happy memories are sad, and the sad memories are…” his hand rises up to touch the scar across his chest, and he shudders. “I don’t know. It’s not just the castle that can be unsettling, I suppose. But… perhaps some time away really would do me good.”

“Yeah, no shit,” says Trevor, sitting up again and yawning as he tugs his blanket up around his shoulders.

Alucard ignores him.

 

Sypha catches Alucard’s arm as he moves past her toward the table where he now has various tubes and beakers of liquid bubbling away over flames. She presses her fingers to the livid scar that criss-crosses his torso.

“You said earlier that you don’t scar easily.”

He freezes for a second, his jaw clenched. Then, after a moment, he exhales. “Not easily, no.”

“Then I’m sorry. About this one.”

He sighs, leaning in so their foreheads touch, his hand over hers. “I… thank you.”

“Was it from-”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

Alucard closes his eyes, and exhales deeply. “I like to think that it’s sort of dashing,” he says. He sounds like he’s trying not to cry.

“Oh, definitely,” says Sypha, “don’t you agree, Trevor?”

Trevor stands, reaching out rest a comforting hand on Alucard’s shoulder. “Yeah, it sort of makes your weedy lanky body look a bit more interesting.”

 

Alucard makes a damp snorting sort of noise which Trevor belatedly realises must be a laugh. “Thanks,” he says, a little thickly, taking Sypha’s hand between his palms. He stares down at their intertwined hands for a moment, and then he says, “You’re bleeding.”

She glances down at her fingers. “It’s not so bad. Just some little nicks from the glass.”

He raises the hand to his mouth, and kisses the pads of her fingers, one after the other. “My mother used to grow roses,” he says, as Sypha stares down at her hands, where a thousand tiny cuts are slowly sealing themselves up. “She’d come in from the garden and he’d kiss her hands, and all the damage would be undone. Just like that.”

 

“Oh, darling…”

He takes a slow, shaky breath. “It’s fine. Here, give me your other hand. And Trevor, have you got any cuts that- it only works on little ones.”

Wordlessly, Trevor holds his hands out toward Alucard, and watches as he presses feather-light kisses along the fingertips.

“There,” says Alucard, as three pairs of hands carefully clasp together between them, all clean and healed and perfect again. “All better.”

 

“You holding up alright?” says Trevor, bumping their shoulders together.

Alucard smiles, a little watery and faint but genuine in its sentiment. “I’m not doing brilliantly, but yes. I'm... alright. I’m alright."

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like Godbrand would be actually pretty popular with kids, he has that Chaotic Uncle energy that small children are always amused by... also he's immature as hell so like. u kno he's gonna get on with anyone whose entire world still revolves around hitting things with sticks and trying to make people eat mud pies. u kno? he's still an asshole tho dont get me wrong, isaac taking him tf out was a season highlight for me ngl XD
> 
> I know I mentioned this in the notes last time but in case anyone missed it and is still lookin for an 18+ castlevania discord, go send an ask to http://shaerrah.tumblr.com/ask - she's a mod and can give u a link to the server ^_^
> 
> as always, my love and adoration goes out to everyone leaving comments and kudos. i cherish u all. come the rapture, u will all be spared!! :3c


	27. Chapter 27

“Is it just me, or is it getting colder in here?” asks Trevor, blinking his eyes open and shivering slightly at the sudden chill.

“It’s definitely not just you,” says Sypha, her teeth chattering over the words. She’s got her blanket wrapped around her again, crouched on the floor near the foot of the chaise with her hands cradling a little blue flame that hovers improbably a few inches above the floor. “Go look outside.”

 

Trevor groans, heaving himself upright and ambling over to the window. He blinks. “Hey, what the fuck? How long was I asleep for?”

“About half an hour.”

“Then how come it’s…” Trevor gestures vaguely at the storm-blank gloom outside. Then he frowns. For a moment, he’d thought that night had fallen, only now that he looks more carefully… “Is that _snow_?”

Sypha nods grimly.

“I’ve never seen a snowstorm like that.”

“No. Alucard and I were discussing it, and we think-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says Trevor, tugging his blanket closer to his chest with a sigh. “I don’t need to be one of you nerdy book types to work this one out; it’s magical fuckery because that damn witch hates our asses, for some reason.”

 

“To be fair,” says Sypha, patting the floor and snuggling up to Trevor when he slumps down next to her, “somebody in your family did seal her in a jar for several hundred years.”

“Yeah, and what’s that got to do with me?! I don’t have any fucking control over the dumb shit my ancestors did.”

On the other side of the room, Alucard lets out a hastily-stifled snort of laughter.

Trevor glares over at the window, and the swirling storm outside. “This is so fucking stupid.”

“Undeservedly you shall atone for the sins of your fathers,” intones Alucard. Trevor is ninety percent certain that he’s quoting something, but he refuses to give him the satisfaction of asking what it is. People who quote stuff always want to be asked what it’s from, and they’re also always unbearably smug when they get a chance to explain it. Trevor is not in the mood for smugness. It’s too cold for that.

“It really doesn’t matter who’s fault it is,” says Sypha, “I just don’t want to freeze to death.”

Trevor nods in glum agreement. “That would be such an embarrassing way to go, after everything that’s happened.”

“It really would.”

 

“Well,” says Alucard, crossing the room toward them and waving a sheet of parchment covered in hastily-scrawled notes, “on a more cheerful topic, I did manage to figure out what was in the jar.”

Sypha perks up at that. “You did?! Anything exciting in there?”

“It’s mostly herbs and water; valerian, vervain, lavender, chamomile-”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure that it’s part of the binding, then, and not just tea? Because-”

“It also contains rather a lot of arsenic. And some hemlock. And… well, quite a few things you really wouldn’t want to put in your tea.”

“… ah.”

“As far as I can tell it’s a cocktail of herbs and a few other ingredients that are designed to sedate the ghost. Stop it from fighting the binding too much.”

“Arsenic is hardly a sedative!”

Alucard shrugs. “Well, you know, they do call death ‘the long sleep’, so I suppose in some ways…”

“Alucard!”

He smirks. “Sorry. But in any case, you can’t really kill a ghost, can you? So the rules are a little different. I would imagine that whoever added all this stuff knew that it wasn’t being made for human consumption; hell, _I_ wouldn’t even drink it, and I’m half vampire. It’s pretty potent stuff.”

“What if I dared you?” blurts Trevor.

 

Alucard and Sypha both on him with mirrored expressions of deep exasperation. “You do realise that this is _poison_ , Belmont?” says Alucard.

“Yeah,” says Trevor, “but what if I dared you?”

Sypha shakes her head. “Oh, come on. Obviously he’s not going to drink poison just because you dared him to. Are you, Alucard?”

 

Alucard hesitates for just a fraction of a second too long. “Well…” he begins.

Sypha raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“You’d drink poison just because Trevor told you to?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve never done anything Belmont told me to do in my life, and I don’t intend to start now. But if I was _dared_ …”

Sypha puts her head in her hands and sighs.

“To be fair,” says Trevor, “a dare is pretty serious business.”

Sypha groans. “This is unbelievable.”

“Look,” says Alucard, “just… nobody dare me to drink poison and we’ll be fine.”

 

There is a long moment of silence, during which – in fairness to him – Trevor does spend at least ten seconds trying really hard not to rise to the bait. But then he caves, and blurts, “Alucard, I dare you to drink-”

“No.” says Sypha.

“I dare you to-”

“No!”

“I da-”

“NO!”

 

Faced with the full force of Sypha’s wrathful gaze, Trevor has no choice but to back down. “Sorry,” he grumbles.

Sypha glares at him. “As you should be!”

Alucard sighs. “You’re no fun.”

Sypha rounds on him. “I’m no fun? _I’m_ no fun?!”

“I mean…”

“You are honestly telling me that I am no fun because I won’t let Trevor dare you to drink poison? Really?”

 

Trevor slings a companionable arm around Alucard’s shoulder, and shakes his head solemnly. “Don’t let her get to you. She just doesn’t understand that daring each other to consume disgusting and possibly dangerous drinks is an important part of male bonding.”

Sypha snorts. “Oh? And what are the other parts?”

“Poetic longing,” says Alucard.

“Chicken,” says Trevor.

They both glance at each other and immediately burst out laughing.

 

“Are you fucking serious? I- chicken, Belmont? Really?”

“Oh, because yours was so much better-”

“Chicken!” Alucard wheezes, leaning into Trevor’s chest and burying his head in his neck. “The entire vast world of literature and art and thought about male friendship and desire, and you boil it all down to ‘drinking gross things’ and ‘chicken’. Incredible.”

 

Trevor rolls his eyes and glances over toward Sypha. She’s looking on at them warm-eyed and contented, perched on the edge of one of the many long oak tables with her chin perched delicately in her hands. Trevor raises an eyebrow at her. She grins.

“You look cute,” she says, simply. “You both look… really cute.”

“I’m not cute,” grumbles Alucard, “I’m a terrifying creature of the night.”

“A terrifyingly _cute_ creature of the night,” says Trevor.

“You’re both bullies,” says Alucard, begrudgingly leaning in so Trevor can plant a kiss on his cheek.

Sypha just smiles. “That’s us! Big nasty bullies who want to kiss you and make you smile!”

Trevor takes the opportunity to blow a raspberry on Alucard’s cheek.

“Ok,” says Sypha, holding back a laugh as Alucard pulls a face and vainly tries to shove Trevor away from him, “do you boys want to come and help me make some more of this poison now?”

 

Alucard finally manages to extricate himself from Trevor’s grasp, and rubs furiously at his cheek with the back of his hand. “Yes. Absolutely. And when we’re done I’m going to feed it to Trevor.”

Sypha glares at him.

“Just a little bit?”

“No!”

He sighs. “Alright, fine, fine, I guess Belmont can live to see another day.”

“Thank you.”

Trevor grumbles something about Sypha ruining everyone’s fun, but cuts himself off abruptly when she gives him one of her Looks with a capital L.

 

“Nobody is going to drink any poison on my watch, even if it is part of your so-called male bonding. Honestly, the pair of you! Now,” she says, turning to Alucard and waving the bit of parchment he’d brought over earlier, “I have your notes here, but-”

Alucard strides past her, toward a vast cabinet on the far wall which seems to be composed almost entirely of tiny drawers. To its right are several shelves stacked with neatly labelled glass bottles.

“Brilliant. Read out everything I’ve written down there and I can find out if my mother had it in stock. I should imagine most of it will be pretty easy to find, although there’s a couple of things that might be a little…” he shakes his head. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Some of the more esoteric ingredients might be easier to find in my father’s lab.”

Trevor frowns. “This castle has more than one weird science laboratory with ingredients for making magic ghost poison?”

“Obviously. His lab adjoins this one – you can reach it through the door just over there. They did work together on occasion, but mostly they had separate projects ongoing, and it would have been an awful annoyance to have to share one laboratory, when the castle is more than big enough to house two. Well. Actually there are about five laboratories-”

“ _About_ five?”

He shrugs. “There’s a sixth, sort of, but it got converted into a playroom when I was born. It still contains a rather excellent scale model of the solar system, and a few microscopes, and a cabinet with some Bunsen burners and some of the more child-safe acids, but it’s not really a lab any more, per se.”

 

“… right. So, while you guys are making more poison juice to make the witch go to sleep, is there- I mean, can I help? I can… I don’t know. Stir the cauldron or something?”

“We won’t be needing a cauldron,” laughs Sypha, “but-”

“Sypha says you’re good at carving things,” says Alucard. He sounds distinctly sceptical.

“She’s basing that purely on my etchings of dicks on tables in bars.”

“… of course she is.”

“They were some really good dicks, though,” says Sypha. “Very anatomically accurate; I was impressed.”

Alucard sighs, swanning back over toward Trevor and placing a sheet of parchment on the table in front of him. “Do you think that you could copy these symbols onto a vessel? Sypha drew them up based on the pieces of the glass jar we found.”

 

Trevor eyeballs the swirling sigils on the parchment for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, I don’t see why not. I’d need a knife, though, and I don’t think it’s the best idea to do it in glass again, since-”

Sypha plonks a metal jar and a sharp-pointed tool down on the table by the parchment. “Way ahead of you.”

“Huh. Yeah, alright then. Does it matter what order they go on in?”

She shakes her head. “Not as far as I can tell. But they need to be as accurate as you can make them. Between those and the potion inside, we should have a pretty good shot at re-binding her tonight. Although I’m still not sure exactly how the binding ritual itself would work… something like an exorcism, perhaps? Well, I’m sure something will come to me.”

 

“I certainly hope so,” says Alucard, staring out of the window with a slightly pinched expression. “Another night of this weather would be… unpleasant.”

Trevor scratches his head, frowning. “I thought you said you don’t really get affected by the cold?”

“Not until it gets very severe indeed.”

“Then why-”

“Because the cold affects you, and it affects Sypha, and therefore it concerns me. Obviously.”

 

And at that, despite the way the chill has settled in the room, Trevor feels warm all over – for a moment, at least.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm super ill right now so updates may be a little slow for the next couple days <3
> 
> as ever all my love to the folk who leave kudos and comments, your lovely words directly fuel my decaying body & spirit in direct and flagrant contravention of the laws of death and undeath!! :*


	28. Chapter 28

“There,” says Alucard, giving the jar of noxious slurry in front of him a pat, “that should do it.”

Sypha glances over at the jar, then back at the scribbled list of notes on the parchment in her hand. “We’re still a few ingredients short, actually. We need-”

“I know. But this is everything we’re going to find in mother’s lab. The cloves and the magnesium I found empty jars for, so she seems to have run out of them both and forgotten to restock - but presumably father will have had supplies.” He scratches his head. “Actually, now I think about it, I think it was me who used up the cloves. I was making spiced tea, and the kitchen is quite a long way away, and… well, like I say, I’m sure those won’t be hard to find in my father’s lab.”

“Or in the kitchens, for that matter,” nods Sypha. “Yes, I’m not too worried about that, it’s more the-”

“As for the other things on the list, well, she didn’t keep any arsenic to hand, which I had suspected would be the case - but I’d be incredibly surprised if there isn’t some s _omewhere_ in the castle. It might not be very clearly labelled, but… oh! Actually, I know exactly where some is.”

“You do?”

“Yes. There’s a ring on display in the Long Gallery above the third-floor music room; the gem set into it is actually a hollow stone, and it’s filled with arsenic.”

“Hang on,” says Trevor, “Your dad just had a random poison ring on display?”

“Oh, it’s weirder than that. That hall is a sort of… a gallery of methods that have been used in past attempts on his life. I was never allowed in there as a child, of course, but he used to bring guests through that way if he didn’t like them.”

“… right.”

“His sense of humour was sometimes a bit on the eccentric side.”

 

“On balance,” says Trevor, as Alucard leads them off through the doorway into his father’s lab, “it’s actually pretty surprising that you turned out as well-adjusted as you did.”

“My mother was a very grounding influence.”

Sypha raises an eyebrow. “Your mother – no offense – married _Dracula_. That’s hardly the sort of thing I normally associate with the idea of a ‘grounding influence’, Alucard.”

“You… may have a point there. I’ve never – would you hold the jar for a second?” He hands the jar off to Sypha and his outline blurs red, his frame shifting and vanishing, then re-appearing halfway up the far wall, his fingers gripping into the brickwork. “I’ve never had a particularly strong grasp on normality,” he yells, and then he starts… pulling chunks out of the wall?

 

It takes Trevor a moment to realise that the wall that Alucard is holding onto isn’t brick at all – it’s entirely composed of tiny drawers, which Alucard is now rifling through, pulling them out one by one as he mutters vaguely to himself. Trevor takes a moment to look up at the room around him, feeling distinctly dwarfed by the massive scale of the place. The wall Alucard is crawling over – he keeps flashing in and out of view to different parts of the shelving – is vast, easily a dozen times the height of a man, and twice as wide across as it is tall. The vaulted ceiling above is obscured by soaring staircases and platforms that seem to hover in the air, and at the centre of the room a great tangle of pipes and humming gears is lit by the strange self-lighting torches that Trevor first saw in the vault below Gresit. There are bookshelves, tables, vast diagrams pinned out on boards and annotated in an elegant looping script… the place is a marvel. It also has, unlike Lisa’s lab, a distinctly threatening atmosphere. Where hers had been warm and clean, spartan in its decoration but neat and clearly well-loved, his room is dark and windowless, filled with cases of wire-strung skeletons, and peculiar steel machines that whirr and spin with ominous intent.

 

“So, this place is fucking terrifying,” he says, nudging Sypha’s shoulder and pointing over to what appears to be an entire pickled human heart in a yellowing glass jar.

She shudders. “Urgh. It really is. No wonder we went to his mother’s lab first! This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“No kidding,” says Trevor, his gaze drifting past the creepy human heart jar to the wall beyond, where a laughing portrait of kind-eyed blonde woman takes pride of place between a cabinet full of glittering beetles on jewelled pins, and a stack of books with sigils on the cover that make his eyes hurt if he looks at them too long. “I just can’t work out what the fuck she saw in him.”

“In Dracula?”

Trevor nods.

Sypha considers this for a scant half-second. “Well… he was _really_ tall.”

Trevor snaps his fingers. “Shit! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that before? He was _tall_. God. It all makes sense now.”

 

A vague blur of reddish light is all the warning they have before Alucard appears next to them, breathing slightly heavily. “Here,” he says, holding out a handful of powdery metallic dust and tipping it into the top of the jar, “that’s that, and here’s…” he tips a few sharp-spiked little cloves out of his other hand into the jar, then brushes his palms together with a grin, “Right! That’s that sorted. Now, follow me, we’ve got a bit of a walk to get over to the Long Gallery. We’re- we need to take the long route over there.”

“Oh?” says Sypha, screwing the lid carefully onto the jar as Alucard bounds ahead through the lab and out into the corridor beyond.

“Yes,” says Alucard, chewing his lip slightly, “the short way there, is, uh… a bit messy.”

Sypha sighs. “There are bodies in the corridor, aren’t there?”

“Mmm. And on the stairs. And in some of the rooms. I recognised some of them and it was very stressful, so I decided it was probably better to just wait until they’re skeletons until I start thinking about taking them outside. That way I won’t know who’s who and I won’t feel so wretched about the whole thing.”

Trevor and Sypha exchange pointed glances.

 

Alucard looks back at them, his expression sheepish. “… I can see now that that probably wasn’t the best way to handle the situation.”

Sypha hands Trevor the metal jar before reaching out to catch one of Alucard’s hand between hers. “In fairness,” she says, stroking the back of his palm with her thumb, “I don’t think there’s a _good_ way to deal with recognising the bodies left in your hallway.”

“No, probably not. Still.”

“Trevor and I will help you clear things up, alright? I mean, not right now, but… once we’re done with the witch thing.”

“I would appreciate that. It’s- there was one in particular that was-” he shakes his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t know him all that well, but he was just… somebody I’d had a drink with at a ball a few years back, and he had a lovely smile, and I... well. It’s very unsettling to recognise a dead person.”

“Dead people are pretty unsettling in general,” says Trevor. “Especially if you knew them before.”

“Especially then, yes. Still. I need to stop dealing with my problems by locking the door on them and turning into a wolf.”

“I dunno, that sort of sounds like a pretty good way to deal with things.”

“Trevor, the fact that you think that is exactly why I feel the need to change it.”

 

Trevor flips him off cheerfully.

Alucard makes a motion as though he’s catching the gesture, and pulling it tenderly toward his chest. “So _romantic_ of you, Belmont.”

“Fuck you.”

Alucard winks. “Not if I fuck you first.”

Sypha wolf-whistles at Trevor, who can already feel his cheeks reddening. “Hey, that’s not what I-”

Alucard smirks. “Of course it isn’t.” Then he comes to an abrupt halt in front of a series of doors, and frowns for a moment. “We need to go… ah! Left, I think. It takes a bit longer, but part of the outside wall got blown out along the other hallway, so it’s probably a bit chilly along there at the moment.”

“Just a _bit_?” grunts Trevor, pulling the blanket closer around his shoulders.

“Well…”

“Oh, come on. This whole castle is fucking freezing right now!”

 

Alucard is at his side in a flash. “You’re cold? Sypha, are you cold too? Should I go and get you both more blankets? Or- there are furs, too. Maybe furs would be better. Coats? Do you need coats?”

Sypha giggles. “Stop fretting.”

“Look, I don’t- I have no idea how cold is too cold for a normal human! You do realise that the cold can kill people? I don’t-”

“Trust me, it needs to get colder than this,” says Trevor.  “I’ve slept outside in winter; compared to that, this is practically tropical. It’s just unpleasant, that’s all. And I definitely don’t want to go near any of the bits where there aren’t walls.”

Alucard chews his lip fretfully. “Well… alright. But please tell me if you’re getting frostbite.”

“We’ll be sure to let you know,” says Sypha, cheerfully summoning a hovering blue flame and cupping it between her palms. “Trevor, come stand with me. Look,” she continues, as he shuffles over to huddle next to her and the dancing flame, “I’ll keep us both nice and toasty. Better?”

Alucard stares for a moment, then cups her face between his hands and pulls her in to a kiss.

 

Unattended, the flame in her hands flares a deep, pinkish-red. When Alucard finally pulls back the flame splutters back to a soft blueish-purple, but the afterimage of the brilliant red light lingers in Trevor’s vision as Sypha leans into his chest with a soft smile.

 

“I… thank you,” says Alucard, a little gruffly. “Sorry. I just feel a bit…”

“I know.”

“My nerves are bad at the moment.”

“I know.” She pats his hand. “We’re alright, though. We’d let you know if we weren’t.”

 

“Alright,” he says, with a long, careful exhalation. “Alright. Yes. Can I- can I ask one more favour of you both?”

“Anything,” says Sypha.

“We’re nearly at the Long Gallery, and I… I don’t want to go in there. Not right now. If I describe the ring to you and wait outside, would you mind-”

“Of course we will,” says Trevor. “You just have to promise you won’t lock the door behind us and leave us to a slow death by starvation.”

 

Alucard chuckles. “Ah, oh no, you’ve foiled my dastardly plan.”

“The Belmont line triumphs again!” laughs Trevor, planting a firm kiss on Alucard’s forehead. “Gotcha.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot.”

Sypha rolls her eyes at their antics. “Alright, enough of that. Alucard, you just tell us what this ring looks like and we’ll go get you your arsenic for your jar of witch… juice… poison… stuff…” she waves a hand vaguely in the air, “Oh, whatever- you know what I mean.”

 

“Indeed I do,” says Alucard, with a solemn nod. “The ring shouldn’t be hard to find; it’s in a glass case about halfway down the hall on the right, along with a selection of knives and the burnt remnants of several rather fine whips.”

“Belmonts?” asks Trevor.

“Belmonts,” nods Alucard. “Indeed, I think quite a number of the items on display in that room have been confiscated from your errant ancestors at some point or another. The ring, however, belonged to another vampire; a rather foolish young Count with pretensions of greatness. It’s hard to miss. Very gaudy, big reddish stone, lots of gold – it’s a pretty tacky looking thing. The case should be open, but if not I really don’t mind whether you smash it or pick the lock or whatever else; it’s not especially valuable.”

 

Alucard pauses as they reach the end of the corridor. A heavy pair of iron-bolted doors lie ahead.

“I’m going to…” he slides the bolt open and stares at the doors, expression inscrutable. “I’m going to wait here, then,” he says, eventually.

Sypha squeezes his shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

Trevor pats his other shoulder. “Unless you lock the door behind us, in which case obviously we will have to break out and kill you.”

“I would expect nothing less,” says Alucard. “Alright, now, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to…”

 

At which point, he turns into a wolf.

Sypha sighs. “You need to stop doing that. You literally just now said that it was a bad way to deal with things.”

The wolf gives a mournful little howl, and flops down onto the carpet with big, sad eyes.

“Oh, darling…” says Sypha.

Trevor reaches down to scratch his head. “We won’t be long, alright?”

 

Alucard makes a sad huffing noise, and settles his head down onto his front paws as Sypha and Trevor tug open the heavy iron doors, and step tentatively forward into the darkness beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, I know I said this before and then I turned out to be veRY BAD AT ESTIMATING HOW MUCH MORE WORDS WERE IN THIS FIC, but, I think that we're not crazy far from the end right now. Another... few chapters? I'm not sure exactly how many. But we're in the final, I dunno... quarter? Third? Of the story rn. So, just a heads up on that!!
> 
> (despite my repeated claims that im going to 'take a break' once this is done, im already knee-deep in the process of planning another fuckin multichapter for once its over because im apparantly on a roll with this ship, lmao)
> 
> as ever my heart belongs to all the brilliant folk who comment and leave kudos - you guys are the high-quality lubricant that keeps the wheels of fandom spinning! bless u all!!


	29. Chapter 29

As soon as the door swings shut behind them, Sypha turns to Trevor and says, “We have _got_ to get him out of the castle as soon as we can.”

“Agreed. We need to clear up all the bodies first, though. And we’re gonna have to patch some of the walls up… we don’t want to come back to find the place awash with snowmelt and ridden with vermin.”

“So we’re going to come back?”

“Well, it would be a shame to leave the place to rot. There’s a lot of nice furniture in here.”

“Oh, that’s true, that’s true.” Sypha scratches her head thoughtfully. “So, have we basically just turned up and decided to move in to Alucard’s house?”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty much.”

“… is that allowed?”

Trevor shrugs. “Somebody has to look after the place, and I don’t think either of us wants to leave him here alone again. So… yeah. I think it’s fine.”

“I guess so. We should probably tell Alucard we’re moving in, though.” She frowns, then brightens slightly. “Oooh, tell you what - I wonder if we could find somebody willing to do a little maintenance on the place while we’re away? It seems like a- ARGH!”

 

Sypha shrieks as they move forward and a vast pair of claws and glittering amber eyes loom abruptly out of the darkness, illuminated from below by the flame she’s cradling in her palms. They bump elbows as each tries to interpose themselves between the other and the attacker at the same time, and then-

 

“Oh, wait,” says Trevor, hand frozen on the pommel of his whip, “I think it’s… stuffed?”

They both stare up at the tiger in front of them, poised part-way through a leap, teeth bared, claws out, and… yeah. Not moving. At all. They stay stock still for a moment, looking warily up at it, their breathing slowly returning to normal as they watch cautiously for any sign of movement.

 

Sypha giggles nervously. “Alright, so, false alarm, huh?”

They both gaze up at the tiger. Sypha shifts the flame in her hand, and its glass eyes flicker in the firelight. It almost seems as though they move… but only almost.

Trevor heaves a slow, shaky sigh. “False alarm. Shit. I fucking hate that.”

“I know,” says Sypha, with a shudder, “It looks _way_ too alive for comfort. Look at those teeth! And the eyes…” she shudders again, and steps closer in to Trevor’s side.

 

Trevor frowns as they cautiously shuffle past the razor-sharp tiger claws and onward into the hall beyond. “Does this mean somebody tried to kill Dracula with a _stuffed tiger_? Because, honestly, that’s a pretty ballsy move.”

“I think that the tiger was probably not stuffed when they set it on him.”

“Ah! Oh. Yeah, that- that makes more sense.”

“But I like your idea better,” says Sypha, motioning the ball of flame upward into the air where it expands, casting the corridor beyond in soft glowing light. “It’s more fun. I think the world could use more fun.”

“It’s fine,” says Trevor, gruffly, “you can just say it was a dumb idea. I know that a lot of the stuff I say is dumb.”

She gives him an appraising glance. “True. But also a lot of the stuff you say is not dumb at all, and you just think it’s dumb because you consistently underestimate your own talents.”

“I… you think so?”

“You’re actually really good at a lot of stuff. You should big yourself up more.”

 

Trevor coughs, feeling heat rising on the back of his neck. “I don’t- I’m not-”

Sypha tucks her arm into the crook of his elbow and leans up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek. “I think you’re really talented and handsome,” she sing-songs, tugging him forward with a cheerful little hum. “I think you’re really talented and brave and pretty and you can’t stop me from thinking that. So there!”

“Now you’re just trying to make me blush.”

“Oho, no way! If I was trying to do that I would definitely be talking considerably less about your strength of character and considerably more about your dick. Or maybe Alucard’s dick? Or both.” She strokes her chin thoughtfully, eyes bright. “I’ve put some thought into that, actually, and I think that if I used both hands, I could definitely-”

 

“Okay!” squeaks Trevor, coming to an abrupt halt. He clears his throat, and re-pitches his voice about an octave lower. “I mean, okay. That is- wow. Okay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m _very_ into where that line of thought is going. However. Alucard is right outside being a wolf because he’s stressed, and I think we need to grab the arsenic and get back to him as fast as possible because I really don’t like leaving him on his own like this. You know?”

“Ah,” says Sypha, nodding wisely and patting Trevor’s cheek, “and now you are being the hottest thing a man can be; thoughtful about the feelings of others.”

Trevor snorts. “Yeah?”

“Absolutely! Well, that or being naked. Or wearing really nice boots. Or being naked apart from a pair of really nice boots.” She frowns. “No, maybe that would be weird. I don’t know. Let me get back to you on that.”

“… sure.”

“You’re right though,” she says, glancing down the length of the gallery with a sigh. “We need to find this stupid arsenic ring so we can go back to Alucard and cheer him up before we fight the ghost witch.” She frowns. “That sentence is too much. Do you ever just stop and wonder at what point your life became a complete and utter mess?”

 

Trevor chuckles, eyeballing the shattered remains of a sword in a large glass case as they pass. In the dim light he can just about pick out the remnants of a well-worn Belmont crest on the pommel. “You know, I think I have a fairly precise handle on when my life went to shit, actually.”

“You do?” says Sypha, staring over at a wickedly sharp-bladed guillotine on the other side of the hall. Then her eyes turn back toward Trevor and the Belmont sword, and she says, “Oh, you mean-”

“When my family died. Yeah.”

“Huh.”

 

They carry on walking in silence for a while, a baffling array of weapons (maces, spears, an ornately carved longbow of improbably size) and things that are only arguably weapons (a poker, a large and very well-sharpened quilll, _several_ frying pans) passing them by on either side. The room is long, far longer than Sypha’s flame can illuminate, but it’s not especially wide. It’s more like a glorified hallway than anything, if hallways were fucking terrifying and lined with ornately carved glass cases of deadly weapons. Or… not-so-deadly weapons, as the case may be.

 

After they’ve walked a few dozen yards further down the gallery, Sypha glances up at Trevor sidelong. “So… do you miss them?”

“My family?”

“Yes.”

“I- yes. But also…” he sighs. “I dunno. I used to dream about them, all the time. I used to- I had this idea that maybe someone, somehow, had escaped the fire. That we’d run into each other on the road in some tavern or bar and… talk, I guess. Travel together. Be family again. It’s a stupid idea, I know. But I haven’t had a dream like that in a long, long while.”

Sypha squeezes his arm. “It’s not stupid to want people to come back, even if they can’t. Maybe especially if they can’t.”

Trevor sighs. “I don’t know if that _is_ what I want any more, though. I mean, shit, even if by some miracle I wasn’t the only one who survived, I… it’s been a long time. What would we even have to say to one another, now, if I could see them again?” He shakes his head. “No. I don’t want my family back. I want- I want them to not have fucking died in the first place. I want them to have been there for me when I was a fucking kid having to sleep in bushes and beg for food on the road. I want- urgh. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. It’s good to talk about these things.”

 

“You say that, but I don’t see you talking about your family all that much.”

Sypha laughs, but there’s something brittle about it. “I don’t know what you mean. You met my grandfather, after all. And the rest of the train are like a-”

“Not what I meant.”

 

When she speaks, her voice sounds small, suddenly. “No. I know. Maybe… maybe sometimes advice is easier to give than to take.”

Trevor puts an arm round her shoulder and pulls her close. “Yeah. I get that.”

She leans into him with a sigh.

“So…” he says, slightly hesitantly, “Do, uh- is this where I’m supposed to ask if- uh. What… happened to them?”

“My parents?”

“Yeah. And… siblings?”

She shakes her head. “No, no siblings. Just me.”

“Alright.”

 

She exhales slowly, and closes her eyes. Then she opens them, and she says, “They died.”

“Yeah, I figured as much. You wanna tell me how?”

“They got sick. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry.”

She sighs. “Look, it’s nothing awful like you and Alucard had to go through, it’s not- you both have so much pain to carry, I don’t want to add to that.”

Trevor comes to a halt and frowns down at her. “Hey now. Every contribution to the childhood trauma soup that we’re cooking up here is a valued and important one.”

She laughs. “The… childhood trauma soup?”

“Not my strongest metaphor, I’ll give you that, but they can’t all be winners. You get what I mean, though, right? We’ve all had plenty of shit to deal with, and it’s all _different_ shit but it’s still… shit. Right?”

“… so is it shit, or is it soup?”

 

“Ah,” says Trevor, setting off down the gallery again, “and now you’re deflecting this conversation into an argument about my terrible metaphors because you don’t want to talk about your dead parents.”

“Perhaps I am.”

“That’s your ‘turning into a wolf’, huh?”

She laughs. “Ah, clearly I made a terrible mistake when I decided to start trying to get you to talk about your problems. Now you are going to make me talk about things too! I’ve created a monster.”

Trevor grins proudly. “You have! You’ve given a Belmont the ability to talk about feelings! It’s simply too much power for one man to have.”

“It really is.”

“And you’re _still_ avoiding the subject.”

 

She puts an arm round his waist, and her smile fades slightly. “I know. It really is different, though. What happened to your families and what happened to mine, it’s not- it isn’t comparable, not really. There was no terrible violent crime, no villain, nothing evil or unusual or strange. It was just… I don’t know. A sickness that went round, and some people got better, and some people didn’t. It happens all the time. They were just unlucky.”

“Yeah?”

“And besides, I was a baby when they died. My grandfather raised me; he’s my family in all of the important ways. They’re just… people who I never really knew.”

“Do you miss them?”

“No. How could I? I don’t even remember their faces. But I miss the _idea_ of them. I miss… the idea of parents, of having a mum and a dad and of being a family like other people get to be.” She glances up at Trevor, her gaze uncharacteristically wary. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

She stares down at her hands, biting her lip. “Sometimes, I think a small little horrible part of me is… jealous of Alucard, when he talks about his parents. And I know- I mean, my god, I know how awful things have been for him and how badly it all ended but… but he _remembers_ them. And he has all those portraits to look at, you know? He’s never going to forget their faces.” She sighs. “That’s a shitty thing to think. And I don’t mean it, not really, but I think it sometimes, anyway. Just a little bit. God. What does it even say about me that I _think_ it? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

 

Trevor wheels her round and grabs her face and kisses her, and kisses her again, and again, until she stops trying to babble apologies into his mouth. And then he pulls back, hands still cupping her cheeks, and rests his forehead against hers. “It says that you’re human. Alright?”

“But-”

“Oh, come on. You think I’ve never thought shitty things? That Alucard hasn’t? We all think stupid shitty things all the time, because we’ve had stupid shitty lives and everything is fucking awful! But we also think good things, and we do good things, and we have- we have our whole lives ahead of us to work on it. To work on… on being better people. On being happier. On whatever the hell we want, I don’t know.”

Sypha kisses him then, very gently, and when she pulls back she’s all watery-eyed and soppy looking. “Yeah,” she says, with a sniff. “Yeah, you’re right.” And then she laughs, and pulls back, and all the tension seems to melt out of her. “God, Alucard wasn’t lying– you being the emotionally sensitive one is the _worst_. How dare you make me feel my own feelings? You're a bastard, Belmont!”

 

“Yep, that’s me,” says Trevor, laughing and reaching out to ruffle her hair - and then laughing even harder when she glares at him and tries to neaten it out. “Alright,” he says, giving her hair one last ruffle for luck, “Let’s get this ring and go collect wolf boy before anyone has any more emotions, huh?”

“Absolutely. And, hey, Trevor?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I’m… really glad I know you.” She holds out her hand.

He takes it. “I’m really glad I know you too.” He stares down at their linked hands, at how well they fit together, at how soft and gentle her palm is in his calloused fighter’s hands. “Sypha-” he begins.

 

And then she says, “Oh, look, there it is! That must be the arsenic ring – over there, in the big shiny case. Quick, take the lid off the witch juice jar and we can pour it in!” And she goes bounding off into the semi-darkness ahead, clapping her hands together in evident delight. And Trevor tails after her, grinning fondly, and thinks, well, hey, maybe that’s a conversation for another time. He’s got a lifetime to get around to saying it, after all.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *trevor voice* everyone's got trauma bitch, lets get u some fruit
> 
> anyway real talk i think its important that everyone in the ship has different fuckin Sad Backstory Trauma stuff & i want them all to be able to discuss it and help each other and heal. and. i dunno. i love... sypha....... a lot............ shes very good at helping her Sad Boys but its also important that they are also there for her because, she deserves the world??? i love her. im. gay. thank u for coming to my ted talk.
> 
> as ever my heart sings for all of u beautiful people who leave kudos and comments. my heart is not a GOOD singer and she is a LITTLE out of tune but she means every word when she says: i love u all. thank u.


	30. Chapter 30

 Sypha’s still screwing the lid down onto the metal jar as they exit the gallery doors, and she almost drops it entirely when Alucard hops up, tail wagging, to lick her face.

“Hey, watch out!” she giggles, “Get- hey, get down, silly! We were only away for a few minutes, stop being so over-excited. Let me put this lid on properly, alright?”

Alucard licks her cheek once more, then flops back down onto four legs, spins round, and hurls himself at Trevor.

 

The trouble with wolf-shaped Alucard is – Trevor reflects on the short but undignified journey he has toward the ground as he goes tumbling backward – that he’s even more of a tit than regular-shaped Alucard, but because he’s all fluffy and big-eyed he always seems to manage to escape Sypha’s wrath.

“You little _shit_ ,” grunts Trevor, as his ass hits the cold flagstone of the hallway floor, and then, “Urgh, fucking- get off!” as a very heavy and very excited bundle of fur hits his chest and starts delightedly licking stripes up his face.

“Aw, Trevor, don’t be mean to him. He’s not a little shit, he’s very sweet actually.”

“He’s a fucking _wolf_! Since when are wolves sweet?”

“I know, but look at him! He’s very cute.”

“He’s licking my fucking face, how is that- urgh! Sypha, he’s slobbering all over me, make him stop!”

 

Sypha rolls her eyes. “I’m not in charge of Alucard.”

“Yeah, but you are a little bit, though.”

“And anyway, he’s not doing anything wrong. He’s being friendly.”

“You’re only letting him get away with it because he’s a wolf, if he was person-shaped he’d never be licking my fucking face like some kind of-”

 

The words are barely out of Trevor’s mouth before the wolf on his chest is morphing into an only slightly less menacing human shape. He realises his mistake just as Alucard leans in and grins.

“Oh no-” says Trevor.

“Oh yes,” says Alucard, and licks a stripe from the bottom of Trevor’s chin to the top of his forehead.

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” says Trevor, giving him a firm shove backward.

Surprisingly, Alucard makes no attempt to resist, and instead rolls backward with a disgusted expression. “Urgh, I’ve got- wolf spit- in my mouth-”

“So have I, you fucking bastard!”

 

Sypha puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head at the pair of them. “Alucard, that’s your own spit, you can’t reasonably complain about-”

“But it was in my mouth, Sypha-”

“It’s already in your mouth! It’s always in your mouth, that’s how it works. For goodness sake, the pair of you…”

“Wolf spit has a different _viscosity_ ,” whines Alucard. “It’s upsetting.”

"You’re damn right it’s upsetting,” grumbles Trevor, rolling over so he can wipe his face on Alucard’s pant leg, “I, for one, think-”

Alucard has the gall to turn his nose up at that; “Don’t wipe spit on my trousers, Belmont, why are you always so resolutely disgusti-”

“It’s your spit! It’s your spit!”

The argument devolves very quickly into a hair-pulling tussle.

 

“Previously,” says Sypha, as Trevor grabs a handful of Alucard’s hair and yanks him into a headlock, “I had assumed that your constant scrapping was a result of some very poorly repressed sexual tension, but, on balance, I think it is just something you do because you are idiots.”

“We’re not idiots,” says Trevor, only it comes out more like, “We’re not- idipfftaargh!” because halfway through the sentence a particularly poorly-aimed swipe from Alucard ends up with most of his hand in Trevor’s mouth.

Sypha raises an eyebrow, then pulls a small folded piece of parchment from the cleavage of her nightgown, unfolds it, and begins to read.

 

“What?!” she says, when she looks up to see Trevor and Alucard gawping at her, “it’s not like this dress has any pockets.”

“You can just… keep stuff there?” says Trevor, visibly awestruck.

She nods. “Yeah, obviously.”

“I’ve never seen you do that before.”

“I don’t have to mostly, because normally I have pockets in my robes. I even have a secret pocket for putting bread rolls in so I can save them for later and snack on the go.” She sighs. “You know, I like this nightgown a lot, but I do miss my bread roll pocket.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re perfect?”

“Yes,” she says, with a smug little grin and a flip of her hair, “but I’m always happy to hear it again.”

“You’re perfect,” says Trevor, fervently.

 

She blows him a kiss. “Thank you! Okay, now, we’ve got most of the stuff you’ve written down on the parchment now, Alucard-”

“You got the arsenic ring?”

“We did! So we can check that off the list. But it also says here something about…” she squints at the parchment and frowns. “I can’t read this. Oil of… something? With a big question mark after it?”

“Yes, it’s- Trevor, would you mind letting me go? I can’t really move my head right now.”

“Oh!” says Trevor, unfurling his arm from around Alucard’s neck, “yeah, sorry. Forgot you were there.”

“I have that effect on people,” says Sypha, with a wink.

 

Alucard rolls his eyes and runs a hand carefully through his hair, smoothing it out. “You’re both ridiculous.”

“Thank you!” says Sypha. Then she waves the parchment at him. “So, what’s the last ingredient?”

“Oil of Saints,” says Alucard, with a thoughtful frown. “Or at least, I think that’s what it is. It’s a little hard to tell, since it’s not really something you can identify on a chemical level.”

“What the fuck is Oil of Saints?” says Trevor.

“That’s… honestly a pretty good question. It’s a substance said to flow from the relics of certain saints, or sometimes it emanates more generally from the area of their tomb. The exact nature of the liquid is – well, in scientific terms, it’s often mostly water, which makes it very hard to identify with any degree of certainty.”

“… right.”

 

Sypha looks back at the list with renewed interest. “How do bones leak water?”

“They don’t, mostly,” says Alucard, with a dismissive sniff. “It’s normally just water flowing onto them from somewhere else that appears to emanate from the relic itself. It’s a more common phenomenon in stone tombs set into rock, for obvious reasons.”

“So it’s just a bad case of damp?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. But whether it’s water or not, it’s been in contact with relics, which gives it certain… properties.”

“Like holy water?” says Trevor, slowly.

“Theologically speaking? Not exactly. For our purposes? Yes. It’s very similar, but stronger in its effect.”

 

Trevor takes a deep breath. “Okay. So where do we find this stuff? Your dad didn’t happen to have a room full of saint grease, by any chance?”

Alucard laughs. “Uh, no. Sadly not. Holy water we could probably find in the gallery you’ve just been in, but nothing quite as specialist as the oil…”

“So we check the Belmont hold,” says Sypha.

“We check the Belmont hold,” agrees Alucard. “We saw that relic of Walpurga, after all, so it’s certainly not impossible that there might be some. And it’s incredibly effective stuff when employed against creatures of the night, so it would make sense for the Belmonts to have at least a little of it hanging around if they could get their hands on it.”

“And if there isn’t any?” says Trevor.

“Then we substitute in some holy water instead and hope that the sigils and the rest of the stuff in that jar does the job.”

“Oh, well, that’s alright, then,” says Trevor. “We can definitely find holy water somewhere around here; I bet there’s heaps in the hold, even if there isn’t any in your dad’s weird murder gallery. Should be fine.”

 

“Famous last words,” sighs Alucard, as they begin to traipse back over toward the cellars and the rope down to the Belmont library.

“Don’t worry yourself,” says Sypha, patting his arm.

“Also famous last words.”

Trevor chuckles at that, and Sypha rolls her eyes fondly at them both.

 

By the time they get back down to the library, Alucard has managed to work himself up into one of his more fretful moods.

“It might not be important,” he says, chewing his lip and staring plaintively at the jar, “but I do wonder which saint they got the oil from? Maybe we need it to be somebody specific?”

“It’s probably not a big deal,” says Sypha, bending down to read the faded label on one of the bottles stored in a particularly ancient-looking cabinet. “No, no oil here - I think it’s all turpentine. This might be a medicine cabinet? Or maybe your ancestors kept sheep.”

“Sheep?” says Trevor.

“Turpentine keeps the lice off,” she says, absent-mindedly, as she turns toward a chest of drawers and starts riffling through. “And you can use it to polish wood, too. Truly an all-purpose elixir.”

“That sounds more useful than your saint grease, Alucard,” says Trevor, giving the man a friendly nudge. He’s clearly getting into one of his moods again.

 

Alucard sighs deeply. “What if it isn’t Oil of Saints at all?” he says, continuing to stare down at the jar in his hands as though hoping to divine its secrets through sheer force of will. “I’m really only able to make an educated guess about that, based on what the sigils seem to represent and on the other ingredients present… as I said, it’s not exactly something one can run a chemical test for, it’s not even consistent in its formulation across different tombs, I…”

Trevor gently pries the jar out of his hands and puts it aside. “We wouldn’t know jack shit about what’s in there at all if it wasn’t for you.”

“I know, but-”

Trevor kisses him. “Stop working yourself up about it. We’ll split up and search the place properly, and if we don’t find anything… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Panicking isn’t going to help anything.”

“… have I ever told you that I hate it when you’re right?”

Trevor snorts and pats his arm companionably. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go look for saint grease. I’m gonna go check back by where we found the jar in the first place. You can come with me, or-”

Alucard shakes his head. “No, that’s fine. You’re right, we’ll cover more ground if we work separately.”

 

“Great,” says Trevor, ruffling his hair before he turns and heads off into the bookcases, “I’ll bring back any little bottles or whatever that look fancy or have crosses on them for you two to look at, alright?”

Alucard glowers at him, raising a hand to carefully re-arrange his hair. “Fine, but please leave my hair alone. Is it not possible for you to stop being a complete bastard?”

“You love it.”

“Hmmph,” says Alucard, folding his arms and continuing to stare Trevor down.

Trevor winks at him. “That’s not a no.”

Alucard grins a little at that, despite himself. “You’re right. It’s not.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oil of saints is a really interesting phenomenon!! Let Me Slurp The Forbidden Juice
> 
> happy christmas eve to those who celebrate, and happy just a regular day where all the shops close stupidly early to those who dont <3
> 
> as ever, all my love to the folk who comment and leave kudos, you guys are Perfect & I adore you


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up that this chapter contains sexually suggestive scenes!!
> 
> (by which i mean, trevor takes a well-deserved break to contemplate How Exactly He Would Like To Get Dicked Down, alucard Is A Dick, and also sypha Laughs At The Dick Spellbook Again)

“Oil of Saints,” mutters Trevor, squinting down at yet another bottle with a time-worn patchy label. “Oil of Saints?” He frowns at the bottle. It’s faded enough that can’t make half the letters out, but there’s definitely an ‘m’ in there. No ‘m’ in oil. Alright. “Not Oil of Saints,” he says, sadly, putting it back on the shelf. Then he moves on to the next cabinet, pulls another bottle out, and starts the whole process again.

 

It’s not strictly true to say that Trevor can’t read; after all, he’d been educated fairly comprehensively until the age of… whatever it was. Twelve. Thirteen. Something like that, anyway. And it has proved useful in the time since then to retain a working knowledge of at least _some_ words – Trevor could read the word ‘Tavern’, for example, from three miles away in the pouring rain. In multiple languages. Still, he’s certainly illiterate in the common sense of the word, which is to say, he really can’t read or write Latin any more – although, if pushed, he might be able to dredge up a couple of the simpler conjugations his tutor used to yell at him about as a child. He’s got a solid enough grasp on reading and writing to manage a few basic words and phrases from most of the local dialects, however, which is normally enough to skate through situations that don’t involve a fuck-off huge library and a ghost mystery that seems to mostly involve books in languages he hasn’t even heard of.

 

All of which is a pretty longwinded way of saying that, for various reasons that he probably wouldn’t admit to out loud, Trevor is fairly confident in his ability to read the word ‘oil’ in a handful of local languages. It’s like ‘free food’ or ‘ale’ – a word worth remembering how to read because it’s… well. A portent of enjoyable things to come. Mostly, it has to be said, things that involve dicks, although he has also on occasion enjoyed some really good olive oil with a nice bit of bread and cheese. Let it never be said that Trevor Belmont is not a man of culture. Still. Mostly dicks.

 

Trevor sighs, staring down at yet another cabinet full of ancestral junk. This really isn’t what he ought to be thinking about while trying to find oil that belonged to a Saint. Knowing what those bastards are like, it’ll probably be miraculously hidden from him until he stops thinking filthy thoughts. He frowns, and tries to clear his mind, which normally happens quite naturally every few minutes because he’s in general incapable of maintaining a solid thread of thought for any length of time beyond that. Trevor’s luck being what it is, though, it turns out that trying not to think about something is actually an excellent way to suddenly become totally incapable of thinking about anything else.

 

There are, Trevor reflects as he rifles cursorily through another cabinet of useless junk his ancestors had kept lying around for some reason, definitely worse things that a man could be stuck focusing on. And there’s certainly a lot to be considered, here. He wouldn’t mind, he muses, getting bent over a table by Alucard, if he didn’t think that the bastard would be irreparably smug about it afterward. Although, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Then again, maybe he’d rather Sypha do the honours – it’s definitely possible, he’d known a girl once with a most fascinating system of leather straps and a very suggestively shaped ivory attachment which… well, maybe they can both have a go. Or maybe he could… god. Lots of choices here. On balance, he reflects, it’s probably quite sensible for him to think about all this a little bit, at least – after all, he’s never had two people at once before. There are logistics he should be considering, right? Right.

 

He’s been _considering the logistics_ very thoughtfully for some time when a low chuckle from above alerts him to the presence of the world’s smuggest half-vampire.

“Search going well, Belmont?”

Trevor jumps slightly, head whipping up to catch a glimpse of Alucard, perched on the bookcase above his head and grinning cheerfully down at him. Bastard. “Yeah. Uh. Going… good. Just been, uh… exploring some of the cabinets and stuff.”

“Really? Because it looks like the only thing you’re currently exploring is the front of your pants.”

Trevor considers this for a long second. He looks down at his crotch, then up at Alucard, then back down again, and slowly removes his hand from his trousers with as much dignity as humanly possible. “No I’m not.”

“Trevor, I just saw you-”

“No you didn’t.”

 

There’s another soft chuckle and a shifting flash of red light as Alucard appears next to Trevor, slouching artfully against the same bookcase he’s currently propped up against. “Would you believe me if I said that I find this every inch as frustrating as you do?”

“What?”

Alucard shrugs, sinking down slowly to join Trevor where he’s seated on the floor. “All this… what did you call it before? Magical fuckery. It’s distracting us from more interesting avenues of activity.”

“Oh! You mean, uh…”

“I was thinking we might all play charades when this is over,” says Alucard, his eyes glittering, “or perhaps you enjoy boardgames? Maybe we could teach you how to play chess.”

“I already know how to play chess.”

“You do? Then we can play a game or two. Delightful.”

Trevor narrows his eyes. “You’re not serious about the boardgames thing, right? You’re not actually frustrated that this ghost witch fuckery is keeping you away from playing chess?”

 

“No. I’m not.” Alucard runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head, giving Trevor a long, contemplative look. “I’m frustrated because I want to drag you both back to the biggest bed I can find and keep you there for a very, very long time. And I want to do all sorts of frankly unspeakable things to you, or-” he frowns, “or maybe the other way round. I don’t know. We should probably try everything, just to be certain.”

Trevor takes a deep breath before managing to choke out a slightly startled, “Oh. Huh.”

“Sorry. Too fast?”

Trevor blinks. “No! No. I mean, I’m down. Obviously. I was, uh, contemplating something along those lines myself, actually, so… you know what they say. Great minds think alike.”

“And fools rarely differ,” laughs Alucard, grinning as he slides a hand round the back of Trevor’s neck to pull him in for a kiss. “In all seriousness, though, much as I mean every word of what I just said, we do need to sort out the ghost first.” He bumps their foreheads together and kisses Trevor’s nose with a glint in his eye. “So if you could possibly refrain from jerking off for, oh, I don’t know – a few more hours? That would be ever so helpful.”

 

Trevor sighs. “Urgh. I mean… sure. I guess.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re such a buzzkill.”

“My plan to drag you off to bed would be significantly impaired if we all end up dead, Belmont.”

“… I guess.”

 

Alucard gives him one last lazy kiss before he disappears in a blur of red light, and re-appears in a perfect three-point crouch on top of one of the nearby bookcases.

“Fucking show off,” grumbles Trevor. “You’re not helping.”

“What can I say? I like seeing you riled up.”

“You fucking-” begins Trevor.

But, with a wink and another shifting flash of light, Alucard has disappeared into the darkness of the shelf-tops.

 

Trevor shakes his head slowly, sighs, and stands, brushing himself down and trying to ignore absolutely anything that’s happening below his waist, with mixed success. But – loathe as he is to admit it – Alucard does have a point. So he turns to the next cabinet, and begins to scan the shelves for bottles.

“Oil of Saints,” he mutters, turning yet another yellowing glass jar over in his palms before shoving it back on the shelf and moving on to the next. “Oil of Saints. Oil of…”

 

His search doesn’t become substantially more successful over the next hour or so, although he does bump into Sypha at one point and she hops up onto her tiptoes to kiss him as she passes, which naturally makes him go all doe-eyed and soppy for the next few minutes. Urgh. She’s so effortlessly endearing. And also extremely hot. It’s a very unfair combination, in all honesty. Still, he does manage to find not one but two vials of holy water, which he pockets – he’s long since learned that it’s better to be over-prepared when it comes to creatures of the night. As to oil, however, he comes up entirely blank.

 

He’s just about to head back to the heart of the library to find Alucard and Sypha and see if they’ve had better luck when a loose sheaf of parchment on the floor catches his eye. There’s a drawing on it that looks a lot like… he bends, and picks it up, holding it up to the light. Yeah, that’s definitely one of the sigils that he’d copied out onto the metal jar earlier from Sypha’s drawings. He frowns down at the parchment, thoughtfully. It looks like a letter of some sort – it’s addressed to a Belmont, he can tell that much, but beyond that familiar name the language is mostly beyond him. Something Germanic, maybe? He can’t really tell.

 

He glances around him. Huh. He’s only a few paces from the mess of cabinet shards and broken treasures that they’d found the glass jar in earlier – perhaps this was in the cabinet before Alucard went flying into it? He stares back down at the letter, flipping it over in his hands. There are more sigils scribbled into the margins on this side, and they all look distinctly familiar. He’s not really paying attention to the text, given that it’s clearly not in any language he has an even rudimentary grasp of, but as he’s inspecting the sigils, a word suddenly jumps out at him.

“Oh,” he says, with a vague sinking feeling, “hang on a second, isn’t that…” He traces a finger over the parchment, and yeah. Yeah. That’s a name he recognises from one of the old family bestiaries, which, in his experience, is never a good sign. Still, it’s progress; enough progress to warrant going and finding the others so he can pester them about it. Besides, they’re both nerds. One of them can probably read this shit.

 

He finds them back near the hole in the roof and the body of the demon they’d slain earlier (and, really, he needs to get Sypha to help him take that thing outside before it begins rotting; after all, _somebody_ has to set Alucard a good example for how to deal with corpses in the family home). They’re both giggling over a book, curling in toward one another with a natural familiarity that makes Trevor smile. They look nice like that.

 

He doesn’t say that, of course. What he says is, “Hey, Alucard, what was that you were telling me about not getting distracted?”

Alucard looks up from the book with a markedly guilty stare. “I, uh- that is, we-”

“Trevor, come here,” says Sypha, trying and failing to stifle a wheezing laugh as she turns another page of the book, “I found the book of penis spells again. This is the funniest- oh my god. What is that?!”

Alucard looks down at the illustration she’s pointing toward, and blinks. Slowly, steadily, his head tilts to the side. “I… have no idea.”

Sypha lets out another peal of laughter as Trevor ambles over toward the pair, shaking his head fondly at them both.

 

“So, while you two were productively using your time to laugh at weird pictures of dicks, I actually found something that might be relevant to our ghost problem.”

Sypha wipes away a tear from her eye. “I want to frame this entire book. I want to dedicate an entire room purely to lovingly-detailed copies of every single one of these images. I want- wait, what did you say, Trevor?”

“I found something interesting,” says Trevor, holding out the sheet of parchment with a smug glance at Alucard.

“What is it?” says Sypha, closing the penis spellbook with a fond pat on the spine before she places it down on the floor beside her.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” says Alucard.

 

Trevor hands the parchment over to Sypha with a shrug. “It might be nothing, but the sigils are-”

“Oh! Just like the ones on the jar! Where did you find this?”

“On the floor not far from the place we found the old bits of the glass jar in the first place. I figured that it could well have floated a little way from where it was originally placed after Alucard knocked half the library down-”

“Hey!”

Sypha nods, thoughtfully. “Could well be.”

“And I recognised one of the words on here.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow.

“It was in the family bestiary. Or- well, one of them, anyway. I used to get mother to read it to me at bedtime when I was little. And then when I was older I’d read it myself. Great pictures in that book. Anyway, there’s a name here – look,” he taps the parchment, “Filimer. That’s the name of a King who banished a bunch of witches ages and ages ago, which makes me wonder if this jar might have been built to house one of them? They were supposed to be pretty powerful, so I guess it would sort of make sense.”

 

“Aliorumnas,” says Alucard, slowly, “that’s the name of the witches, isn’t it? I think I remember a little bit of the story. One of the Gothic kings supposedly banished them from his realm, oh… a thousand years ago? More? But why there would be one sealed in a jar in the Belmont hold I can only-”

Sypha scoffs. “You pronounce it like a clergyman.”

Alucard blinks. “What?”

“All ‘a’ and no ‘h’. Like how they pronounce hallelujah all wrong, you know?” She wrinkles her nose. “The word is haliurunnae, if there are many, but she is only one, so… haliurunna. And it was no king who banished them; it was Speakers.”

“Speakers? I don’t remember ever reading anything about-”

“You know,” says Sypha, cutting across him with a frustrated little sniff, “ever so often we Speakers get asked - what if you forget the stories you are supposed to remember? To which I would simply say, well, what if somebody wrote down a lie, and then because it was in a book everyone believed it to be true, and so in time the lie was the only thing that anyone remembered? What then?”

“I…” Alucard hesitates for a moment, a frown creasing over his perfect brow. “I had never thought of it like that.”

“No, of course not. And that is the danger of trusting too incautiously in the written word; it is no more _true_ for having pretty gold ink around the margins.”

“Wisely said.”

“Thank you. In any case, as I was saying – the Speakers banished the haliurunnae long ago, and your people’s history forgot, because somebody else wanted to put their name on our victory.”

“Who - King Filimer?” says Trevor.

Sypha shakes her head. “Oh, no. No, he didn’t even actually exist.”

“He- what?!” says Alucard.

“It’s a very long story,” she says, with a shrug, and then, catching the fascinated expressions of the others, she softens slightly. “Alright, so, basically there was this guy-”

 

Her explanation is abruptly cut off by a monumental crashing sound in the distance, and a sudden biting gust of wind whistles between the shelves, sending the book of penis spells flying open and knocking several of the more spindly-looking tables over completely. And along with the biting wind comes…

 

“Snow?” says Trevor, as a flurry of white powder blows almost directly into his face.

“Oh shit,” says Alucard, fervently. “Oh, s _hit_.”

“Why is there snow in my library?”

Alucard pinches the bridge of his nose with a long sigh. “So, you know I mentioned how I was a little worried if my temporary roof over the entrance to the library would hold?”

“Ah,” says Trevor.

“Oh dear,” says Sypha.

“Well,” says Alucard, glowering as another flurry of snow whistles through the shelves around them. “it looks like it didn’t.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would like to formally blame trevor belmont for any and all dicks mentioned in this chapter, they were not intended to be there but... u know when a character just Takes Over The Situation? yeah, that
> 
> so, w/r/t the name we now have for ghost lady - the aliorumnas are an enemy in some of the castlevania games that seem to be based on the legend of the haliurunnae, or the haliurunnas (ITS ONE OF THOSE NOUNS THAT HAS FUCKIN WEIRD ASS DIFFERENT PLURALS IN THE NOMINATIVE AND THE ACCUSATIVE AND, FORGIVE ME, I CAN NEVER TELL WHICH IS WHICH), who were written about by a guy called Jordanes in around 550 ad in a history of the goths (as in the european peoples, not as in like.... /goths/ goths who wear black and stuff) that he wrote. He claimed that they had been banished by a King of the Goths called Filimer, who, uhhhh probably didnt exist. Of course, neither did the witches in the real world, but since they clearly do in the Castlevania universe I decided to play with the Historical Content and have their banishment be something the Speakers did that then got erased from history because It Be Like That Sometimes. there's really very little written about these witches, so I've taken a bit of poetic license with their story, but... that's sort of the inspiration I drew on!
> 
> Sypha’s criticism of Alucard’s pronunciation is probably in part just a ‘local word for the same thing’ disagreement, but fundamentally it’s also to do with the pronunciation differences between classical and clerical latin - the silent ‘h’ is defo a church thing, which implies that Alucard learned about these witches from a source close to the church (not unlikely as most learned men in the era were clerics), whereas the Speakers pronounce the hard h as per classical latin
> 
> oh and in medieval times 'illiterate' was SUPER commonly used to mean 'can't read or write latin' rather than 'cant read or write full stop' as its most often used today. for example, contemporary texts about st francis of assisi (who btw was a very nice sort of fellow and has a GREAT grave well worth visiting) often refer to him as illiterate even though he was quite well known for his writings and poetry!! but since he wrote in umbrian (the local italian language at the time), he was still seen as illiterate by the church. The More U Kno.
> 
> also I attempted to research what language the trio would actually be speaking in and, wow, there sure were a LOT of languages floating around in the region at around this time! and linguistics is not my field of expertise!! so i chickened and left it vague, but I imagine that since Trevor clearly travels a lot he probably would speak a couple of related local languages at least, and likely would have veeeery basic literacy in one or two of them. thats my read on it, anyhow!


	32. Chapter 32

Once they get near enough to properly appraise the damage, the three of them all stare up at the gaping hole in the library roof for a long, silent moment. Or, at least, it would be silent, were it not for the unearthly whistling of the wind as it funnels drift after drift of snow down into the library, and the creaking of bookcases as the gale howls through them.

 

Eventually, and with the kind of resigned acceptance that can only come from a long and weary career in dealing with bullshit, Sypha simply says, “Well, this isn’t good.”

There’s a weird high pitched noise which Trevor initially thinks is the wind, but belatedly realises is Alucard making a very soft screaming noise in the back of his throat.

He nudges his shoulder gently. “Alright there?”

Alucard opens his mouth. Alucard closes his mouth. Alucard says, “No?” in a slightly strangled tone.

Trevor slings an arm around him. “Cool. Yeah. Fair enough, I guess.”

 

They both stare back up at the hole where the roof should be, and after a moment Alucard shakes his head. “Fucking hell. This is the last thing we need.”

Sypha glares up at the sky as though willing the snow to stop. “It really is, you know. I wish I’d worn a warmer nightgown.”

Trevor looks down at his feet, and sighs. The biting chill from outside is already beginning to sink into his bones. “I wish I’d worn some wooly socks.” He frowns. “Can you even get woolly socks in a vampire castle? Or is it a leather trousers and tight nightgowns only sort of place?”

Sypha contemplates this, and looks like she’s about to say something when Alucard grabs both her and Trevor by the shoulders, and tugs them back in between the shelving and away from the void above and the biting wind.

 

“The pair of you need to stay out of the cold,” he says, teeth gritted as a blast of fresh snow slams into the trio. “If you both keep yourselves warm for a bit, I can go and-”

Sypha giggles, and pats Trevor’s ass fondly. “I’m sure we can manage that, can’t we?”

Despite the cold, Trevor grins. “Oh, yeah. I have a few ideas, actually. Don’t even worry about it.”

Alucard growls. “Can you both stop with the jokes for literally one fucking minute while-”

“Jokes?! There are no jokes here,” says Sypha, drawing herself indignantly up to her full height. “Just because you cannot appreciate the potential fun to be had in a snow storm-”

“We might have to all strip off and huddle under a blanket for warmth,” says Trevor, dreamily.

“See! Trevor gets it.”

 

Alucard stares blankly at them both. “Have you lost your minds? The roof has just caved in! There’s snow inside the library, and it’s still snowing, and it’s going to get extremely cold very, very fast.”

“Which,” says Trevor, in his most reasonable and measured tone of voice, “isn’t great, we can all agree on that, but it’s also not the end of the world. We’ve slept out in the winter while we were travelling with you before, right?”

“That was completely different.”

“In what way?”

“In- because I didn’t care about you then! Or I did but I didn’t know I did. Or… something like that, anyway.”

Sypha pats his arm cheerfully. “Wrong! The real reason it’s different is that back then we were stuck out on the road in the snow, which sucks, whereas right now we’re technically snowed in to a big fancy castle, which is obviously sexy.”

 

“Being- listen,” says Alucard, gesticulating wildly, “being snowed in, as a concept, is- look, fine it should be sexy. Alright? I agree. Being snowed in inside an enormous castle full of obscenely large and very soft beds and huge heated baths alongside two attractive people who actually, for some godforsaken reason, _like_ me should be- urgh. But it’s not! It’s not, because there are corpses everywhere, and there’s a ghost trying to murder us all, and now the fucking roof is falling in and this whole place is freezing up and you’re both going to die of fucking hypothermia and that’s- god! Everything is so stressful. Nothing about this is even remotely sexy!”

 

As he says this, a glittering flurry of snow blows his gleaming blonde locks artfully around his face, tumbling around the alabaster slope of his shoulders while he remains utterly still, poised with inhuman grace, still bare-chested and wearing very tight trousers and perfectly silhouetted against the stormy grey-white sky outside. Trevor and Sypha exchange brief but significant glances, and come very quickly to a wordless agreement that they’re not going to get into this one right now.

 

“Alucard,” says Sypha, summoning a flame into her palms and huddling up to Trevor with a soft shake of her head, “You’re being very melodramatic.”

“That is my god-given right as a fucking vampire, Sypha.”

“Satan-given, surely,” says Trevor.

“Half-vampire,” says Sypha, sternly, “so it follows that you’re only allowed to be half as melodramatic as a regular vampire.”

“That’s not how it wo-”

“Yes it is. And you know, I’m fairly sure that you’ve used up your entire quota of melodrama for the day by now.”

 

“I-” Alucard deflates slightly, a begrudging grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yes. I suppose that makes sense. Or at least, as much sense as anything else has, lately.” He sighs, and runs a hand through his hair distractedly. “Alright. Alright. Sorry. I’m…”

“Stressed,” say Trevor and Sypha, in unison.

Alucard winces. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” says Sypha, softly. “Come over here.”

And he does, letting Sypha press up against his side and Trevor reach out to gently stroke his hair. “Thanks.”

 

Another icy gust of wind howls through the bookcases around them, and Trevor shudders, drawing closer to the flickering light of the flame in Sypha’s palms. “We probably should get out of the cold, though. Find somewhere a bit warmer to hole up while we figure out what to do about that roof. And the ghost, I guess.”

Alucard presses his head into Trevor’s palm like an overgrown cat before stretching out and nodding slowly. “Yes. Let’s find somewhere a bit more out of the way of the wind.”

 

The library is vast enough that it doesn’t take them long to locate an out of the way little niche in the wall than is, for now at least, relatively warm and sheltered from the biting wind and snow. Sypha plops the fireball she’s holding down onto the floor, where it seems content for now at least to burn merrily away without any visible source of fuel.

“How does that work?” asks Alucard, begrudgingly having joined the others in huddling around the flame despite his protests that it’s not really necessary for him to keep warm.

“The fire?”

“Mmm.”

“It’s burning-” Sypha hesitates, frowning slightly, and wiggles her fingers. The fire dances slightly in front of her, swaying with her movements. “Okay, this is going to sound weird, but it’s burning the air, sort of. Only not all of the air, just the bits of it that burn.”

Trevor blinks. “… what?”

“It’s hard to explain. Air is made of a bunch of different stuff. I can’t see it, but when I use magic I can feel it, it’s- I don’t know. Like I say, hard to explain.”

 

“It's burning something in the air that- I suppose nitrogen, maybe, or... methane? Something like that, I suppose,” says Alucard, staring down at the fire and then looking up at Sypha with evident wonderment.

Sypha gives him a blank look.

“Ah, so, air is composed of several different gases, and some of them are flammable, and you’re-” he shakes his head. “That’s incredible.”

“I'm- wait, how do you even know about that? I’ve never heard of any of this, how-”

He clasps her hands in his, eyes lighting up. “Sypha, there are books in the castle - my father’s, mostly, and then my mothers after she came here – that contain knowledge unknown outside these halls. They’re ancient, maybe, or from the future, or from another world entirely, and they- you- my god. I have to show them all to you. There’s so much we could learn from one another!”

“Science and magic,” she says, grinning up at him, “well, _that_ would be quite something to see, huh? The wonders of the universe revealed. But first-” she reaches into the front of her nightgown and withdraws the mysterious letter from her cleavage (still impressive, Trevor reflects, as a skill) with a flourish, “ghost witch! We should have a proper look at this letter Trevor found.”

 

Alucard shakes his head sternly. “No. First I find you both some warmer clothes. Then ghost witch. Then the wonders of the universe.”

“Hang on,” says Trevor, slightly plaintively, “I thought we were all going to bed after we’re done sorting out the ghost?”

“That _is_ one of the wonders of the universe,” says Sypha, promptly. Then she turns toward Alucard and frowns slightly. "As to warmer clothes - it’s not so bad right now by the fire, but you’re probably right that we should wrap up soon. A few furs certainly wouldn’t go amiss.”

“And some warm boots,” says Trevor.

“And some warm boots,” she agrees, “Although I have a feeling…” she bites her lip. “I don’t know.”

 

There’s something troublesome in her tone that makes Alucard lean forward, frowning. “What is it?”

She stares down at the parchment in her hand for a moment, then looks up and fixes him with a long, cautious stare. “It’s only a hunch, but... what with the witch, and now..." She bites her lip. "Well, I just had a slightly concerning thought about this weather.”

“Oh?”

“If I tell you, you have to promise not to start worrying too much.”

Alucard pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales sharply. “You might as well ask the sun not to shine, Sypha. Or Belmont not to be crude.”

“Hey! Fuck you!”

Alucard makes a vague ‘I told you so’ gesture in Trevor’s general direction. “See?”

 

Sypha frowns, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder gently, smoothing her palm over the tense line of his neck. “Maybe I’ll think on it a bit more before-”

“No, no, you might as well tell me now. The dread has already set in, anyway.”

“Alright. Well, it’s just… I was thinking that maybe furs and warm boots won’t actually make all that much difference. To the problem with the cold, I mean.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

 

She wraps her arms around her shoulders and shrugs, glancing up above the bookcases, where – despite the distance they’ve put between themselves and the hole in the roof - gusts of powdery snow are curling through the freezing air. “The haliurunnae, they weren’t just witches. They were… it’s complicated. But they had found a way to travel between worlds, to open doors that should never have been opened. And it changed them. Made them cruel, and strange, and not quite human at all.”

“What does this have to do with warm boots?” says Trevor.

“Well, I don’t think that this is exactly a normal storm,” says Sypha. “I mean, we knew that already, but I think… Alucard, are you cold?”

“No. I already told you, I don’t really feel the-”

“But you’re shivering.”

 

Alucard looks down at himself, surprise etched on his perfect features. “Oh. Oh, I… why is that happening?”

“Think about it, really think, this time; do you feel cold?”

He thinks about this for a moment, rubbing his hands together slowly by the fire. “I… yes. I do.”

“Then – and believe me, I don’t say this lightly – I think you should put a shirt on. But I can't tell if that will help, because I do not think this cold is normal cold, and I do not think this wind is a normal wind.”

“You think…”

“I think that it is a wind from another world.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sypha this chapter is just the 'everything is fine' dog only instead of fire its snow and ice lmaooo
> 
> also a general note because a few people have asked now: yes, I will probably write something at least vaguely smutty to go with this fic, but no I will not include it in the main body of the work cos that just Aint Everyones Jam and I'm not really wanting to put the rating up any further at this late stage. there might be. a fade to black tho. and then I'll put up another fic with Some More Detail or an epilogue or sth and link it. thats the theory, anyway!!
> 
> as ever all my love goes out to the lovely folk who comment and leave kudos, im stressed as all get-out with life stuff rn so its really nice to have all these nice and charming comments to come back to after a long day. seriously means a lot to me <3


	33. Chapter 33

Once Alucard has calmed down enough to go fetch them all furs from the castle above, the trio waste no time in getting themselves coated and booted, a certain creeping fear lingering as the wind continues to howl.

 

Trevor stamps his feet and rubs his palms together appraisingly, hovering by Sypha’s magically-lit fire on the library floor. A warm coat has certainly taken the edge off the chill, but he still feels… odd. When the wind howls between the shelves it feels almost as though it blows right through the furs, through his shirt and skin and muscle and down to the heart of him. It’s a very, very strange feeling. Still, he’s warmer than he was before, which is a blessing. Next to him, Sypha is similarly swaddled up, although her coat is definitely too big for her and swamps her tiny frame almost as comprehensively as her Speaker robes normally do. She’s currently doing a very cute little jig on the spot to keep herself warm. On the other side of the fire Alucard is pacing restlessly back and forth, muttering to himself. Sypha and Trevor exchange glances. He’s put a shirt on, and a coat, but true to form the shirt is rather flimsy and low-necked, and he’s left the coat entirely open at the front.

 

“Button your fucking coat up,” says Trevor. “You’ll catch your death.” He pauses and frowns slightly. “Christ. I sound like my father.”

Alucard ignores him entirely, or perhaps he doesn’t hear; he does seem rather preoccupied.

“Hey,” says Sypha, “come on, you heard the man - button up! And do you need some gloves? Your hands are going all pink, silly.”

Alucard glances up at her briefly, then returns to his pacing, mumbling something about ‘needing to focus’ and ‘not even feeling that cold, actually’.

Trevor rolls his eyes.

 

“Hey, Alucard,” says Sypha, waving a hand in the air to catch his attention. The sleeve of her coat is long enough that the tips of her fingers are barely visible when she raises her arm, and not at all when her hand drops back to her side. “Hey, watch this. I’m gonna do a magic trick. I can make my whole head disappear!”

Alucard comes to a steady halt, turning to face her with a quizzical expression plastered across his face. “You can wha-”

“Look!” she says, grabbing the oversized hood of her coat and pulling it forward over her head until her whole face is swallowed by the vast plushness of the fur. The coat is oversized and so monumentally furry that she seems to disappear entirely into the depths. There’s a muffled giggle from deep within the hood, and she says, “See? It’s gone! Magic!”

 

Alucard stares for a second, and then the corner of his mouth twitches, and in the space of a moment he’s bent double and wheezing with laughter. “For fuck’s sake,” he splutters, “you’re worse than Belmont sometimes, I swear.”

Sypha throws her hood back down and gasps in mock affront. “How could you! I show you my impressive and spectacular magical powers and you compare me to _Trevor?!_ I’m distraught. I’m inconsolable.”

“You’re a bastard, is what you are,” says Trevor, reaching out to ruffle her hair fondly. “Worse than Alucard, really.”

“Hey!”

Alucard snickers. “He’s right, you know. You’re worse than Belmont _and_ you’re worse than me.”

“That is so-”

“It’s true,” says Trevor, solemnly; “two out of three people in this room say that you’re the worst, Sypha. Can’t argue with the numbers.”

“You’re both mean,” says Sypha, folding her arms and pouting sadly.

 

“You love it,” says Trevor, taking advantage of Alucard’s momentarily relaxed state to grab him by the lapels and drag him closer so he can start buttoning his coat up. If the stubborn git won’t do it himself, well, somebody has to make sure he doesn’t freeze to death.

“Don’t test me,” says Sypha, reaching up to help Trevor button Alucard’s coat. They bump hands, fingers a little clumsy with the cold, and share slightly red-cheeked smiles for a moment before carrying on their work. Alucard, for his part, puts up no particular show of resistance, allowing them to button up his coat and smooth it down and tuck the collar up around his throat with an expression of bemused affection.

 

“Thank you,” he says, slowly. “I am… unsure if this will be particularly effective in keeping me warm, but-”

“Still, it can’t hurt,” says Trevor. “Anyway, you were making me feel cold just looking at you.”

“Yes,” says Sypha, reaching up to pat his cheek; “You do realise that you’re not the only one who worries about other people, don’t you, Alucard?”

He tilts his head to the side slightly so he can press a kiss to her palm. “Of course. My apologies. On the subject of worrying about other people, though – the wind. What exactly do you know about it? It certainly feels unusual, but-”

 

Sypha nods, pulls the letter Trevor had found earlier from the depths of her coat pockets, and hands it over to Alucard. “While you were fetching warm clothes for us all, I took the opportunity to have a read of this. You should take a proper look at it.”

 

He takes the parchment from her and scans the text, brow furrowed. “Hmm. Let’s see… addressed to a Belmont, which makes sense, given the location it was found in. Year of our Lord 755 AD… interesting. That’s when the witch was sealed away? Or… oh, resealed, I see. Hmm. And here are those sigils…” He glances down at the metal jar, now resting on the floor not far from the fire, “Huh. It looks like you and Trevor did a pretty accurate job on those, the lines are very precise-”

“Do my ears deceive me?” says Trevor, “Was that a compliment?”

Alucard flicks his eyes up briefly from the letter, and his tone is cool but his gaze is warm. “You know, Belmont, if you ever paid attention, you’d notice that I actually compliment you quite a lot.”

“You do?”

 

Alucard hums, his eyes returning to the page. “I do. Alright, what else have we got here? And why the fuck is this bit written in English? Who writes letters in English?”

“The English, presumably,” says Sypha.

“I- well, yes, but this was sent from-” he flips the letter over, “the double monastery at Heidenheim. That’s Bavaria, isn’t it, why would- oh. Oh! Signed by one Abbess Walpurga. Ha!”

“That’s her, right?” says Sypha, excitedly. “That’s-”

“Oh, yes, I rather think it is,” says Alucard, with a low chuckle. “She was from England, originally, so… huh. Well, that certainly explains why our witchy friend was so enraged by that reliquary we found smashed on the floor. Must be sort of a sore topic, I imagine.”

 

 “Wait,” says Trevor, “hang on a fucking second. Are you saying that _Saint Walpurga_ was the one who put the witch in the jar?”

Alucard shrugs. “Not exactly. She wasn’t Saint Walpurga yet, because you have to be dead to be canonised. But the woman who would go on to become the Saint… yes. Yes, it seems she did.”

“So what about King Filimer? And the Speakers? I thought you said-”

“No no no no no,” says Sypha, with a dismissive shake of her head, “that was ages and ages before.”

Alucard nods. “There are texts about Filimer banishing the aliorumnas that date back a good century or two before Walpurga was even born. Which means that whoever did the initial banishment-”

“- the Speakers-” says Sypha.

“- did it, oh, I don’t know – a thousand years ago? Two, even? It’s a long way back.”

“Exactly,” says Sypha, “but then this one escaped. And by the looks of it, Walpurga managed to seal her into that big glass jar that Alucard broke.”

 

Alucard has now turned back to the letter, scanning through it with a thoughtful frown. “So she basically- ah, there’s the mention of Filimer… wait, what’s this about a door? The witches were banished ‘beyond the door’, what does that-”

“In your books about Filimer,” says Sypha, linking arms with him as she comes to look over the letter alongside him, “where does it say he banished the witches to?”

Alucard frowns. “To- I don’t know. Outside his kingdom, I suppose. It’s a little vague. There’s not an awful lot that’s been written about him, to be frank – which, of course, would make sense if what you say is true and he never existed in the first place.”

“Right. Well, the Speaker stories tell us that the witches were banished to another world entirely. They had learned dark magics that let them travel to another place, full of power and hate, and these two really clever Speaker magicians tricked them into going there all together at the same time, and then sealed the door so they could never return to the sunlit lands.” She shrugs. “That’s a sort of really abbreviated version; you should get my grandpa to tell it to you, he’s really good with doing the voices and stuff. Still, you get the idea.”

Alucard nods slowly. “I do. And this ‘other world’ - do you know what exactly-”

“Oh, there’s a big debate about that. It’s hel, maybe? With one ‘l’. Or hell with two ‘l’s. And then some people say it’s a void beyond the stars that nobody knows anything about any more because it eats knowledge. And some people-”

 

“Oh, great,” says Trevor. “A ghost witch from hell. Just our fucking luck.”

“Well, like I say, it might not actually be-”

“You know,” says Alucard, glumly, “my mother used to say that hell doesn’t really exist. She used to say it was more a state of mind that people experience when they do terrible things.”

“And then she died and your dad summoned a demon army from hell to avenge her,” says Trevor, giving his shoulder a consoling pat. “That sucks.”

Alucard sighs. “It really does.”

“If it helps,” says Sypha, “I think hell is probably also a state of mind.”

“How is that supposed to help?!”

“… I don’t know.”

 

Alucard rolls his eyes at her, and turns back to the letter. “This does make a bit more sense now, I suppose. So the witches were banished to hell - or wherever the fuck it was that they’d been visiting to gain their dark powers - but... what does this bit say? Oh, I see. So, something to do with the spell that kept them from returning meant that there was a certain day when…” He frowns. “A certain day when the door is ajar? A day when the veil between that world and our own was thin. And that day was when this one escaped, before Walpurga managed to seal her away again.”

Sypha nods. “It’s the day before May Day. The other world comes closer to ours – it’s something to do with the alignment of the stars, as far as anyone can tell. It’s sort of like how you get all those monsters crawling out of the woodwork at winter solstice.”

“Or like All Hallow’s Eve?” says Trevor.

“Very similar!”

“Huh,” he says, and then, with a deepening frown; “Wait, you said the night before May Day? Isn’t that-”

“Walpurgisnacht,” says Alucard, with a knowing nod. “Yes. I rather wonder whether Walpurga’s run-in with this particular witch is what led to the naming of the festival. What a fascinating-”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, cutting him off before he has a chance to get into one of his scholarly monologues. “I was more going to point out that that’s _tonight_.”

 

Alucard freezes. “Wait. What?”

“Oh shit,” says Sypha, as another, stronger gust of wind comes rattling through the shelves and makes them all shudder despite the thickness of their warm fur coats. “Oh, that’s not good. That’s extremely very not good at all. But…” she takes the letter from Alucard and stares down at it. “But I think we know what we need to do, now. Somebody pick the jar up. We need some chalk, and a couple of books, and we really do need to find some of that oil. Trevor, can you-”

He nods. “I’ll find some. We’ve still got a while ‘til midnight.”

“Exactly. Thank you. Now, Alucard, come with me, I’m going to need you to translate a few things…”

 

She waves a hand at the fire, and it blinks out of existence in a flash, and then her and Alucard hurry off between the shelves. Trevor glances up toward the ceiling, watching as flurries of snow wheel through the air between staircases and ladders and towering stacks of books. And somewhere in the castle far, far above, a clock strikes six.

 

He shivers. Not long now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot thickens...
> 
> walpurga was a pretty baller lady! she was literate in several languages and even wrote the 'life' of her brother (who was also a saint). A 'life' was a special sort of biography written about a saint that is normally commissioned to tie in with their canonisation (which is basically when they get made Officially A Saint by the church). she grew up in england and then came to live in what is now germany, where she became abbess at a monastery/nunnery that her brother had founded. in real life she did not seal any witch ghosts from mysterious otherworldly planes of existence in glass jars... THAT WE KNOW OF
> 
> In real life, walpurgisnacht is related to the day that walpurga's relics were moved (moving relics was a whole Thing back in the day) on the 1st of may in 870. the day before that is walpurga's eve, hence 'walpurgisnacht'. the association of the night with witches probably has nothing much to do with walpurga, tbh, it's likely a much older tradition that the church was like 'ok this is ours now', much like halloween. but its always kind of hard to tell with that sort of stuff and anyway this is my story so I'm happy to take liberties lmao.
> 
> as ever, all my love and thanks to u tasty kudosers and leavers of comments, happy new year to yall & i love u lots. times are pretty dark rn but i hope 2019 is the start of a change, and that it brings us all lots of good fun and happy memories! <3


	34. Chapter 34

Sypha and Alucard spend the next several hours partaking in what Trevor can only describe as ‘shenanigans’. There’s what seems to be a very excessive amount of Latin chanting, to begin with. And then they’ve managed to re-flatten the cracked floorboards from earlier and hauled the demon corpse… somewhere out of the way (he hopes they’ve not left it where it will leak onto anything too valuable). Once the space is cleared, they’ve then repurposed the big central area under the wine cellar into what seems to be a huge magic circle of their own, with the metal jar of potion placed smack-bang in the middle of it all. Of the circle left by the witch there is no trace – they must have scrubbed it out while they were fixing the floor up, Trevor assumes. As he wends his way through the library he keeps seeing whole cabinets and bookshelves abruptly shoot up and hover several feet above their fellows; eventually he ends up close enough to where Sypha and Alucard are working to see that Alucard is actually lifting whole bookcases above his head so that Sypha can scurry under them and mark out chalk lines before ducking out of the way so he can put the shelves back down.

 

Trevor raises an eyebrow at this display on his way past. “Show-off.”

Alucard lifts the bookcase a little higher above his head, lowering an arm so that he’s holding it up with a single hand. “Is it showing off to demonstrate my superior physical prowess, Belmont?”

“Yes,” says Trevor.

“Yes,” says Sypha, crouched on the floor next to Alucard and brushing snow away hastily so that she can lay down a series of chalk lines that make Trevor’s eyes hurt when he looks at them too hard. “But please, carry on. You look very handsome doing it.”

Alucard grins, and flexes slightly.

“You’re only feeding his ego, Sypha,” says Trevor, shaking his head at the pair of them.

“You look very handsome too, Trevor.”

“… oh, alright then. Carry on.”

 

She laughs as he rounds the corner and begins searching through yet another row of glass-fronted cabinets. The trouble, he reflects, with searching the library is that while the books themselves are filed in a fairly orderly manner, a lot of the accumulated junk and weapons and odd hunting trophies just seem to be scattered all over the place with no sense of rhyme or reason at all. On top of that, a lot of the staircases were damaged way back when they’d first been here – that’s his fault, kind of, but to be fair he had ended up having to fight all those fucking demons while Sypha moved the castle. Maintaining the structural integrity of the library stairs had, at the time, not exactly been high on his priority list. And he’s not the only one to think that way - unlike the roof, those staircases don’t seem to have been repaired even haphazardly by Alucard while they were gone, meaning that there are definitely entire stretches of the higher parts of the library that Trevor simply can’t reach. All in all, it’s not conducive to finding something that he’s not even sure is actually here in the first place.

 

He sighs as he pulls yet another dusty portrait of Leon Belmont down from the cabinet he’s currently searching through.

“Wish you’d learned how to organise your fucking shit a bit better, Leon,” he says. “This isn’t making my life any easier.”

Leon continues to beam smugly out from behind a layer of dust. What a git.

“Yeah,” says Trevor, putting him back on the shelf face-down, “well, you know what? You can be a bastard about it all you like, but it’s true. This place needs a proper spring-cleaning. And you know what else? Dracula’s son is a really good kisser. So there.”

 

Satisfied that he’s now put his however many times it is great-great-great grandfather properly in his place, he returns to his search. He shunts aside a whole collection of framed Belmonts of various shapes and sizes (he’s going to have to come back here once he has a spare minute, because some of them look super fucking cool) and reaches around at the back of the shelf to see if there’s anything he’s missed, but all he comes up with is yet another picture of Leon. This one is barely more than a sketch, hastily drawn, of him laughing alongside a tall, dark-haired man who looks… hang on a second.

 

That’s not…

 

No. Surely it can’t be.

 

Only…

 

Trevor narrows his eyes at the portrait, which does – on closer inspection - definitely seems to depict Leon Belmont having a very merry giggle with, of all fucking people, _Dracula_. “My god,” he says, shaking his head. “Alucard was right. Idiocy really does run in the family. Wow. Well, I bet there’s a hell of a story behind this one…”

He sighs, returns the sketch to its shelf, and - after a moment’s thought - puts the first portrait of Leon back upright.

“Your library is still a mess,” he says, pointing a warning finger at the dust-covered grin. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that. But, uh… I feel like we have a sort of bad-decision-Belmont camaraderie now.” He looks over at the other Belmont portraits, which include – among other things – a man in the act of throwing a longsword like it’s a javelin, and a woman who is wielding two whips and appears to be yelling for no apparent reason. “We’re probably not the only ones, huh?”

 

Then he blinks. “Fucking hell, why am I talking to a painting? Christ alive.” He shakes his head, moving on to the next cabinet. He mostly brushes the feeling aside, but there is something strangely melancholy about looking through all these things his family used to own. Goblets their hands had touched, books with pages left dog-eared by some distant relative who had meant to return to them but never did. Labels on glass bottles of holy water in a hand that puts him in mind of the way his eldest sister used to write, but fancier and with a certain flourish more reminiscent of his father’s script. Thankfully he doesn’t happen across anything too recent – or, at least, nothing he recognises as such. They must be down here, he supposes, pictures of his parents, his siblings – of him, even – and pieces of all the scattered bits of junk they left behind.

 

He doesn’t, he reflects, especially care to contemplate what the castle above must be like for Alucard. Trevor’s used to feeling shitty about his family, for one reason or another, so it’s not so bad for him. It’s like worrying at an old wound; it hurts, but it’s done the worst of the bleeding by now. Alucard, on the other hand, is new to all this, and brittle, and stuck so close to a thousand little things that must make him miserable. Poor sad bastard. The world, Trevor reflects - not for the first time – is just so fucking unfair sometimes.

 

He’s so preoccupied thinking about his favourite miserable half-vampire that he almost walks right past exactly what he’s looking for – or, to be more specific, he _does_ walk past it, and then comes to a standstill and slowly backs up until he’s eye-level with the small, brightly-painted bottle.

“Aha,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. “Gotcha!”

The painting on the bottle depicts a rather sombre-looking man with a very flashily-gilded halo, although not much of him is visible because the bottle has at some point had a large piece of age-yellowed parchment glued to it, and has been very helpfully labelled ‘ST. NIKOLASS? – MANNA/OIL – EMERGNCY ONLY!! FUCKERS!’ The word ‘EMERGNCY’ has been underlined several times.

“Well,” he says, taking the bottle and pocketing it with a grin, “this is definitely one of those.”

 

He hurries back through the rows of shelves to find Sypha and Alucard, silently thanking his lucky stars that at least one Belmont, somewhere in history, had enough sense to put proper labels on things. So, hey, maybe there’s hope for the family line yet.

 

He’s still grinning when he bumps into Alucard – in a very literal sense, because the man drops down from a shelf and lands in front of him so fast that Trevor walks straight into him.

“Have you ever considered looking where you’re going?” says Alucard, grabbing Trevor by the arm to steady him.

“Have you ever considered not titting about trying to look cool and landing right in front of me where I’m bound to end up knocking you over?”

“Knocking me over? You’d be lucky.” Alucard pats Trevor’s arm, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What are you grinning about, anyway?”

“Just contemplating the bright future of the Belmont line,” says Trevor.

Alucard’s eyebrows shoot upward. “Oh! Ah, well, that’s… probably something you should speak to Sypha about rather than me, but, uh-”

 

Despite the cold, Trevor can feel the heat rise slightly in his cheeks at that. “Oh,” he splutters, “No, no- not like. No. I just meant-” he presses the brightly-painted bottle into Alucard’s hands, and clears his throat. “I found this. And it’s labelled, too! So, you know, some of us somewhere along the line were clearly competent and prepared and, uh… maybe any future Belmonts might… take after them? Rather than me? Y’know. If there are any, that is. Um.”

Alucard blinks down at the bottle, then back up at Trevor. “I see.”

“Sorry. Sounds weird now I say it out loud.”

“Perhaps.” Alucard raises the bottle to the light, and smiles softly. “Still. That’s rather a sweet thought. I hope they take after you at least a little bit.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

 

They both stare very studiously not at each other for the next several minutes. Trevor inspects his shoes, watching as the thin powdery snow on the library floor flutters over them and around. Alucard is still staring the bottle, unblinking.

“So, uh,” says Trevor, eventually, “Is that-”

“Yes,” says Alucard, with a decisive nod. “Yes, it is. Well done finding this; it should make everything we need to do next a lot more, hmm – foolproof, I suppose. We know that this worked before, after all.”

“Right! Great. And, uh… did you guys get all your chanting and stuff done?”

“Our- did you just call it ‘chanting and stuff’?!”

“Well, that’s what it is, right?”

Alucard just laughs, and offers Trevor his arm. “I suppose you’re not wrong.”

 

Trevor takes it, and he’s glad - although of course he’d never admit it - of the stability. For the most part the snowfall is fresh and thin on the ground enough that it’s still relatively easy to walk through, but over the past hour especially there have been strange dark slicks of ice forming between the shelves. He’s fallen on his ass more than once in the past few hours, and the last thing he wants is to do it again in front of Alucard. There’s something about the ice that unsettles him, though, even now he’s not so worried about slipping over on the damn stuff. Something about it that’s… off. And the gnawing cold is unavoidable, now – not severe enough to be intolerable, not yet, but persistent in a way that makes his teeth ache and his eyes water.

 

He’s glad to see, when they reach the big central clearing under the wine cellar, that Sypha has a fire burning merrily in front of her, perched on top of a little stack of books and steadily reading through another with a little frown on her face. She beams when she spots Trevor and Alucard approach.

“Hey! Did you sort out that eastern bit of the circle, Alucard?”

He nods. “Yes. It wasn’t a significant breach – just a sigil we’d left slightly incomplete. I think that’s the last of them.”

She claps her hands together. “Excellent! Well, that’s almost everything, now, unless…”

“Trevor found us our final ingredient,” says Alucard, striding over to press the bottle into her hands with a satisfied grin. “So we’re ready. Or as ready as we’ll ever be. How long have we got?”

Sypha shrugs, beckoning Trevor over and squeezing his hand in hers when he gets close enough, treating him to one of her dazzling smiles. “An hour, perhaps? A little less? Well done, Trevor. Well done to both of you, for that matter. Well done to me!”

 

Alucard sighs, his expression fond but darkening slightly. “Better not to speak too soon. We don’t know what exactly the witch may have learned during her time being sealed away-”

“Presumably not a lot,” says Trevor, “on account of her being stuck in a jar the whole time.”

“- or during the days she’s been loose in the library. And we don’t know what else she might manage to summon up, tonight of all nights.”

They all shiver at the thought of that. Well, partly because of that and partly because of the freezing fucking cold, but still.

Sypha nods, her demeanour business-like once more. “You’re right. We need to be as prepared as possible. Trevor, come and sit by the fire. We can run you through the plan and tell you what you need to do when midnight comes…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of Leon and Drac having been mates at some point... I know in the games they knew each other back when Drac was human, but he seems so much older in the series that I'm not sure if that's true in this continuity? I sort of like the idea that they were friends While He Was A Vampire and then some kind of big old beef went down...
> 
> St Nicholas is a known oil-producing Saint in real life - he's also the guy who Santa Claus is based on (the italian word for Saint is 'Santa' and 'Claus' is just an abbreviation of Nicholas). Quite a few of his relics (there are bits of him all over the place) are said to have at some point produced oil, and I think his tomb still does? Like I think they still bottle it and stuff. As with St Walpurga, the 'oil' is actually presumably water that leaks in from somewhere and runs down the tomb, but still! Interesting stuff!
> 
> as ever, all my love and lots of kittens and puppies to everyone who leaves kudos and comments, you folk sustain my dark magics and arcane powers with ur lovely words. ily <3


	35. Chapter 35

‘The Plan’ is, as it turns out, heavy on explanations about the nature of binding spells, but a little thin on the ground in terms of practical details. Retrospectively, thinks Trevor, this is pretty much exactly what he should have expected from two huge nerds who’ve just been let lose in the biggest library either of them has ever seen.

 

 “… and as long as we can get her into the centre of the circle before the hour is up, that should be fine,” Alucard is explaining, waving vaguely at the chalk lines scrawled across the library floor. “Of course, this is a somewhat altered method, since Walpurga had a number of priests on hand who were able to power the binding-”

“I wish she’d explained that a bit more in her letter,” says Sypha, shaking her head sadly. “It sounded like a very interesting method.”

“Indeed,” nods Alucard, “but our circle should work just as well –  it’s a little…” he glances at Sypha.

“We put it together from a few different books,” she says, with a nod. “It’s not dissimilar to things I’ve done before, though. Just bigger.”

“Mmm. So, theoretically, the binding will be powered by the witch’s own magic. The more she struggles against it, the closer she’ll be pulled to the centre, where we can seal her into the jar for good. So once we have her in the circle, it shouldn’t be hard to-”

 

Trevor cuts him off. “Yeah, alright, alright, but how are you going to do that?”

“What?”

“How are you planning on getting her into the circle?”

Alucard glances at Sypha, who shrugs. “Hey,” she says, “don’t look at me.”

He rolls his eyes, and turns back to Trevor. “I’m… uh, not entirely sure. The trouble is that we don’t know if she’s even corporeal, or at least, we don’t know _how_ corporeal she is, so I’m not sure if we can actually physically catch her to drag her in-”

“We do,” says Trevor, slowly.

“What?”

“We do know she’s corporeal. I mean, she knocked over that reliquary, right? So we know she’s capable of physically manifesting.”

“Oooh, and she read those books,” says Sypha. “And made her own magic circle!”

Trevor nods. “Exactly.”

“Although I guess that doesn’t prove that she _has_ to physically manifest…” Sypha wrinkles her nose. “What if she just goes all invisible and spooky and drifts off out of the castle?”

 

Alucard frowns. “I’d say that was unlikely, since ghosts are normally bound to haunt a certain place, but I suppose she isn’t exactly a normal ghost… and now that her prison has been broken…”

“She can’t do that,” says Trevor.

“You sound very certain.”

“I am. Think about it! Why would she go to the trouble of making that circle and physically breaking through the castle floor if she could just drift out through a wall? That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“That’s- huh. You may have a point there, Belmont.”

Trevor winks. “See? I’m not just a pretty face.”

“Debateable,” drawls Alucard, his eyes bright as he reaches out to pull Trevor toward him, “on several levels, in fact.” He kisses Trevor’s cheek, ruffling a hand fondly through his hair.

 

Sypha wiggles her way in between them and uses the end of her overlong coat sleeve to gently whap Alucard on the nose. “You be nice,” she says, sternly. “Also, I want a kiss.”

Alucard laughs as he tilts his head down to kiss her. “As the lady demands.”

“If she’s corporeal,” says Sypha, sighing happily as she leans back and rests her head on Trevor’s chest, “I can probably wall her in with ice, can’t I? I mean, I doubt it will do much damage to her, since, you know-” she gestures vaguely at the snow settling around them, at the slick-black ice between the shelves. “Well, she’s probably pretty okay with being super cold all the time, right? But a wall is a wall; it doesn’t have to hurt her, it just has to keep her in place.”

“Sounds about right,” say Trevor, with a shrug. “Might make it easier to corral her into the circle if you can do something like that.”

“Because of course I could also make a wall of fire, but…”

“The books,” says Alucard.

“The books,” she nods.

 

“I don’t know how anything could burn in this shitty fucking weather,” grumbles Trevor. “I swear I’m losing feeling in my feet.”

Alucard strokes his arm, brow furrowed. “Hopefully you won’t have to be here much longer. I agree that the temperature is… unpleasant. We should probably get moving; standing still is hardly helping to keep anyone here warm. Besides, I want to run one last perimeter check of the circle before midnight, if we have time.”

Sypha clings on to him as he tries to pull away. “You two are very good windbreaks, do you know that? I think that maybe you should stay here cuddling me forever, actually.”

Alucard kisses the top of her head. “I would like that very much. But…”

Trevor rolls his eyes. “You can make fire from nothing, Sypha. I think you’ll be fine.”

“I know, I know, I just- I wish it wasn’t so cold.”

Trevor feels the way she shivers at that, and wraps his arms tighter around her and Alucard. “Yeah, you and me both.”

 

As he speaks, he feels the wind pick up. There’s something about it that seems almost malicious – as though it heard their complaints and decided to bring the cold in out of spite. Even Alucard shudders slightly as a particularly brisk gust of snow blows up into their faces.

“We need to-” he begins.

 

Whatever he’s about to say is cut off by an ungodly wail from above. The wind hits with a blast of snow so strong it sends Trevor stumbling backward, losing his grip on Sypha and Alucard and barely able to open his eyes against the force of the gale. He gasps, swallows snow, bends double and shudders. When he looks up, he can’t see – anything. Just white, all around.

 

He stumbles forward, gasping in the bitter air, and manages to make contact with- ah, that’s Alucard, and Sypha with her arm round his waist, eyes wide.

 

“Shit, it’s not already-” says Trevor, but the wind swallows his words whole. He sees Alucard try to speak, then Sypha, but the wind snatches the sounds almost before they’re made. A piece of shelving goes flying past their heads, and they all flinch aside, Alucard dragging the others over toward one of the walls, obviously hoping to find some kind of respite from the howling storm. But even here, the wind blows and the snow falls and they might as well be outside entirely for all the shelter the bookcases are giving them. Sypha tries to speak once more, but nothing comes out. She frowns, briefly, and then she throws her hands up in a casting gesture and narrows her eyes.

 

There’s a rush of air as the wind in the immediate vicinity stills, the snow suddenly blown back in a radius of some six or seven feet around them all. Outside of that, the storm still rages, and the cold within the area that Sypha is keeping clear is still mind-numbingly intense - but the sound of the wind is deadened, just slightly.

This time when Sypha speaks, Trevor can actually hear her; “It must be midnight!” she yells, “We need to find that witch before-” And then she shudders, resting heavily on Alucard as a biting stream of snow breaks through the still air around them and whirls into her. Her brow furrows and she steadies herself, bringing her casting hand up as she re-asserts the circle of still air around them, pushing back the snow once more. “We need to find that fucking witch,” she says, through gritted teeth.

“Shit,” says Alucard, clinging on to her arm and – if possible – even paler-looking than normal. “Shit, shit, shit, what- are you two alright? I should have- shit, fucking-”

 

Trevor grabs his shoulders and gives him a shake. “Alucard. Focus. Can you fly in this?”

He blinks. “Fly?”

“You turned into a bat earlier. Can you-”

“Oh! In this wind? No. But I can- I can turn into mist, if that’s- hang on, why would I need to fly, I don’t-”

 

Another wailing howl tears through the air, and Alucard’s eyes widen, lifting up toward the roof with an expression of dread. “Oh,” he says, realisation dawning on his face, “oh, she broke through into the wine cellar, why didn’t we think that she’d- oh god. And now she’s-”

“Inside the castle,” finishes Sypha, her expression wan. “Holy shit. That’s-”

“Not good,” says Trevor, “no. I know. But we all need to keep calm right now and move very, very fast. Alucard, if you fly you can get up into the castle and back down faster than Sypha or I can, right?”

“Almost instantaneously, but-”

“Good. Then you get up there and bring the witch down. Sypha will wait just beneath the hole through to the wine cellar and support you at range – if you need her up there with you, she can- you can make another of those ice pillars, right, Sypha?”

She nods. “Of course.”

“Good. Alright. And I’ll cover the far side of the circle, where Sypha’s line of sight might be impeded by the bookcases. Everybody got that?”

 

Sypha nods again, her gaze determined, beads of sweat forming on her brow despite the frigid air. Her casting hand is shaking slightly, but her eyes are steady. “Got it.”

Alucard just stares at him, his jaw slightly slack.

Trevor growls, grabbing onto his shoulders once more and giving him a firm shake. “Listen, Alucard, I know you’re dealing with a lot of stuff right now, but I need you to stay calm and follow my-”

Alucard blinks, his gaze re-focusing, and grins. “Oh, no, I’m fine. You giving orders is just… surprisingly hot.”

“What?” says Trevor.

“What?” says Alucard, before disappearing into a cloud of mist which vanishes into the storm in a fraction of a second, leaving Trevor off-balance and almost falling flat on his face in its wake.

 

Sypha manages a damp sort of laugh at that, but it’s half-hearted, and she really doesn’t look so great. When Trevor gets himself steady on his feet again she leans into him, breath rasping slightly in her chest as she gulps down air.

“Are you-” he mutters.

She shakes her head. “The storm is- it’s not natural. I can control a normal storm a little, but…”

It’s true – Trevor has been grateful many times for her seemingly effortless capacity to divert the rain away from their heads for a time while they travel, keeping a little pocket of warm dry air around them that makes even the most bitter winter rain and snow and freezing sleet a little easier to cope with. “This is harder?” he says, taking in the way her hand trembles, the sweat freezing on her brow.

“Much. It is like- like I’m fighting something alive. I don’t know. It is… frightening. Stay close, won’t you?”

 

He nods. “Of course. I-”

She gasps, suddenly, letting go of Trevor’s arm and clapping a hand to her mouth. “The oil!” she says, “We forgot to add the oil!”

“Shit,” says Trevor, with feeling. He glances up at the ragged hole through to the wine cellar above, and sees… nothing. He’s not sure if that’s a good sign, or a bad sign, or just a sign that there’s a lot of snow swirling around between him and whatever’s going on up there. Either way. “Can we- how close is the jar? If we run over there and throw the oil in, will it-”

“It’s only a dozen feet or so from here,” she says, “but the snow makes it hard to see, I don’t-”

 

There’s an almighty crash from above, and a terrible wailing snarl, and Alucard appears very briefly at the edge of the shattered wine-cellar floor, crouched down with his sword in his palm and a sickly green-blue light cast across his face, before he leaps forward with a snarl and vanishes once more into the dark.

“You have to cover him,” says Trevor, “Listen, hand me the oil and I’ll throw it in the jar – I’m not much use right now anyway while everything is out of whip range.”

Sypha looks like she might object for a moment, but she steels herself and nods, rummaging frantically in her pocket. She pulls the oil out - along with the letter from Walpurga, a bundle of string, and what appears to be a spare button - and shoves them all into Trevor’s palms, glassy-eyed. “Straight ahead,” she says, pointing directly over Trevor’s shoulder. “Twenty paces, maximum. You’ll see it.”

He pockets the items and nods. “Got it. I empty the whole thing into there?”

“Yes. You- yes. And, Trevor?”

“Yeah?”

She grabs a fistful of his coat and pulls him down for a kiss. “I- just… stay safe.” And then she shoves him in the direction she’d been pointing, and gives him a nod. “Try not to fall on your ass, alright?”

 

He grins back at her with all the spirit he can muster. “Yeah, you- you try not to fall on your ass too.”

 

And then he turns round, braces his shoulders, and steps out into the storm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in castlevania we dont say 'i love you' we say 'try not to fall on your ass' and i think thats beautiful
> 
> anyways sorry for the horrendibly long wait for this update my guys - some friends of mine were visiting from australia and i got to meet them irl for the first time so i had a couple days off writing while i was doin that! it was really fun!! anyway im back on the writing train now so you shouldnt have to wait quite so long for the next one ^_^
> 
> as ever, your comments and kudos are like shiny gems in the dragon hoard that is my inbox, and i cherish them all <3


	36. Chapter 36

He’s a little readier for it this time, but the impact that hits as soon as Trevor steps beyond the pocket of air kept still by Sypha’s powers and into the storm itself still feels as though it knocks all the air from his lungs. He stays standing, barely, but it’s a near thing between the shock of the wind and the sudden slickness of the ice beneath his feet.  

 

“Motherfucker,” he says, with feeling.

He gets a mouthful of snow for his trouble, but it’s the thought that counts.

 

He spits snow, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and squints into the storm. It really isn’t more than a dozen paces or so from here to the centre of the magic circle where Sypha and Alucard had left the jar, but right now he wouldn’t be able to see his own hand if he stuck his arm out full-length in front of his face. Which makes things… more complicated. He pulls the collar of his coat up over his mouth and takes a deep breath. Alright. All he has to do is walk straight ahead, just like Sypha had said. How hard can it be?

 

As it turns out, the answer is pretty fucking hard. Trevor is not unused to struggling to walk in a straight line, but even for a man like himself with extensive and hard-earned experience in this complex art, the storm is something else. At least when he’s drunk there’s normally a wall to lean on or something. Honestly, at this point a drink might actually _help_ him get where he’s going, since he’s suffering from a terrible combination of ‘nothing to hold for support’ and ‘too sober to swallow his pride and crawl’. Everything underfoot seems so be covered with a gleaming layer of ice, although the swift-falling snow is at least helping to give his feet some purchase on the treacherous ground beneath. It’s weird to think that he’s inside the Belmont hold, rather than outside; the visibility is so poor that he can’t even see any bookcases from here. The only sign that he’s in a building at all is the occasional spot in the floor where he can see wooden floorboards beneath the darkness of the ice.

 

Still, the ice underfoot has nothing on the wind. Sypha’s right – there’s something about it that seems aware, somehow, like it’s a living, breathing thing that crawls up over his back and digs in where it finds weak spots. Any triangle of flesh, any gap between clothing and skin, any sliver of space where the wind can claw its way in, it does. That’s the worst thing – not not the huge gusts that cover him in snow and leave him gasping, not the roaring sweeping wind that he has to brace against when it whistles past or be blown over entirely. No. It’s the tiny little eddies of ice-black cold, barely noticeable against the background roar of the storm, that burrow their way into his furs and make themselves at home like old friends. _Aren’t you cold_ , they seem to whisper, _aren’t you tired_ , _don’t you need to sit yourself down and rest…_

 

Trevor shivers, teeth chattering, and pulls his coat closer around his throat, glaring out around him at… nothing. There’s nothing there. But he feels watched, all the same, and that’s not an instinct he’s ever been well-served by ignoring, so he draws his whip before he carries on, trudging forward through the fresh-fallen snow. It’s almost calf-deep now, and getting steadily deeper. Not good.

 

And how long has he been walking for? Surely he should have reached the jar by now. He glances back, but if Sypha is still there, he certainly can’t see her. Which is fine, he tells himself. He’s a grown man, he can survive for a few minutes without Sypha in his direct line of sight. Probably. Maybe.

 

He fumbles in his pocket and clutches the bottle of oil, rubbing his thumb over the peeling label. He can feel the indent marks of the quill in the parchment, where one of his ancestors had pressed too hard while scribbling the label, and he exhales slowly. He does that, too, when he writes. Not that he writes all that often any more, but he’s definitely put a quill through shitty parchment more times than he can count, blunting the nib and leaving blots of ink all over the torn edges.

 

He’s contemplating that with a slight lump in his throat when a sudden movement catches his eye, and he wheels round, almost dropping the bottle entirely in his haste to ready his whip. His head snaps toward the motion, just to the right, where he’d seen – or thought he’d seen – no. There’s nothing there. He puts the oil back in his pocket, heart pounding. He’d thought, for a moment, that he’d seen… something. Someone. A figure that had seemed solid out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned there was only the storm. He doesn’t lower the whip; there’s too much weird magic shit going on for him to feel safe writing any of this off as paranoia, even though that’s probably all it is. He hopes that’s all it is. He backs up a few paces, shuffling his boots through the snow, and jumps slightly when his heel hits something that feels like- oh! Huh.

 

He crouches down and brushes snow aside frantically with his free hand and – yep, sure enough, there’s the jar. Well. That’s something, at least. Once this is done he can get back to Alucard and Sypha, and he’s certain he’ll feel less twitchy once he’s got somebody watching his back.

 

The metal, having been semi-submerged in snow and then exposed to the freezing wind, is bitingly cold to the touch. His hands feel like they’re sticking to the lid when he goes to open it, but it takes him a long moment to get enough purchase to actually unscrew the damn thing. When it does finally untwist, he’s put so much pressure behind the motion that he almost sends the whole thing spilling across the ice – only his hunter’s reflexes save him, and he manages to prevent a catastrophe by the skin of his teeth, rebalancing the jar before the liquid inside can spill out. Or not liquid, as the case may be, since everything is fucking frozen right now. Which, actually… might be a big problem.

 

“Oh, shit,” mumbles Trevor, fumbling in his pocket for the oil once again. He pulls it out, gives it a shake, and- “Fuck,” he says, and then again, slightly louder. “Fuck!”

 

He pops the cork out of the top and upends it over the jar just in case - but it only serves to confirm his fear; the damn stuff has frozen in the cold, which is… Well, on reflection, it’s probably something he should have thought about, but it’s- what the fuck is he going to do? He stares down at the jar as he re-corks the bottle. Maybe if he holds it between his palms for a bit… but his hands are so cold… or perhaps he could just throw the whole bottle in, glass and all, and hope for the best? He doesn’t know enough about magic to be certain if that will even work. He needs- he needs to speak to Sypha. He screws the lid back on the jar and shoves the oil back into his pocket, shaking his head as he brushes snow from the front of his coat. Stupid fucking witch with her stupid fucking snow and her stupid fucking-

 

A sudden flash of light draws his attention, and an echoing scream that he can hear even over the sound of the storm. He scrambles to his feet, hand on the pommel of Vampire Killer, heart in his throat. The light flashes down from the ceiling to the floor like lightning, crackling blue through the falling snow, and when it reaches the ground it flares brighter, brighter, too bright to look at at all. Trevor throws a hand over his face for a moment, and then as soon as it dims just enough to bear looking at, he sprints toward the light, still blinking away swimming dark blots from his eyes.

 

He falls over, of course, skidding forward over the ice and nearly knocking Sypha’s feet out from under her as she suddenly looms out of the snow before him, illuminated by the eerie blue light on one side and deep crimson on the other, her hand clutching a dancing ball of flame. The air is still around her in a radius of some six or seven feet, but her hair is fluttering around her face as though she’s still out in the raging wind. She looks beautiful, but also deeply, deeply terrifying. Trevor is abruptly very glad that he’s never had to fight her. He manages to roll aside at the last second, avoiding skidding into her legs and landing in a pile at her feet. He coughs loudly, spitting out a mouthful of snow that he’s managed to pick up somehow along the way.

 

She blinks down at him as he scrambles to his feet. “Oh, there you are! Good. Did you manage to-”

He doesn’t get a chance to respond, because another chittering scream rings out, and both of their heads whip over toward the source.

 

The witch is shrouded in blue light and snarling, hovering a foot or so in the air and circling around a wary-looking Alucard. He’s also hovering slightly – the fucking show-off bastard – his sword drawn and his gaze steady as he slowly shifts to keep facing her. He glances over at Trevor and winks.

“Nice of you to stop by, Belmont,” he says, ducking aside as the witch darts just a little too close to him, curling claw-like nails tearing through the air. He slashes at her as she pulls away, hissing, but his sword doesn’t quite make contact, the witch darting out of the path of the blade at the last second.

 

She doesn’t, however, manage to avoid the fireball that Sypha sends arcing directly into her vicious, needle-toothed maw.

 

Sypha grins at Trevor as the witch howls, clawing at her face as Alucard advances on her. “She wasn’t expecting us, I don’t think. You got the oil in the jar okay, right?”

“Uh,” says Trevor. “Yeah, about that…”

Her face drops. “Trevor! You had one job!”

“Listen, I know, but the oil had frozen in the bottle and I didn’t- I can’t- I don’t know anything about magic, Sypha! I don’t know if I can just put the whole thing in the jar, bottle and all, or if-”

“Oh! Of course, the cold, I didn’t think about… oh dear…” she chews her lip, flinching slightly as she catches sight of the witch lunging back toward Alucard out of the corner of her eye.

 

She tenses, hands already beginning the motion to summon another flame, but before she has time to intervene, he vanishes in a flash of red, appearing behind the witch and slashing his sword across her back. There’s a moment where it looks as though he’s drawn - blood, maybe? There’s a glimmer of strange, blue, dripping ichor on his sword, certainly - but then the blue light flares and the witch seems to fade slightly and coalesce again, drawing back away from Alucard and snarling furiously. The substance on his sword fades away like mist, coiling back into her body and leaving no trace behind.

“Listen,” says Sypha, tugging urgently on Trevor’s sleeve but keeping her eyes trained on Alucard and the witch, “Pass me the oil. I can heat it to put it in the jar, and you can watch Alucard’s back now he’s got the witch down here in the library. Okay?”

“Okay,” he nods, digging through his coat for the little bottle of oil as his eyes trace the witch across the battlefield. She’s still crackling with that strange blue light, but neither she nor Alucard seems to have made much of an impact on the another, as far as he can see. Belatedly, he realises that the snowfall seems to have lessened since he first saw her, but the cold seems worse, the wind more chill. And… is that blue light getting brighter? “Anything I need to watch for?”

She shakes her head as she takes the bottle from him. “Not really. I keep getting this weird feeling of impending doom, though.”

“That’s… promising.”

“It’s probably nothing, though, right? I mean, if I’m being frank, I think she’s probably gone a bit loopy from all that time in the glass jar – she’s not up to much. She hasn’t even cast a spell, unless I guess making all that light counts. Honestly I’m not totally sure she can even talk other than the wailing, so-”

 

There’s an electric crackle in the air and the blue light flares more strongly than before, a strange high humming rising up over the wind as the witch wheels round toward Sypha, a ball of light pressed together between her palms. She’s grinning from ear to ear, jaw split unnaturally wide, and although her lips don’t move a rasping voice presses its way into Trevor’s mind. From the looks on Sypha’s and Alucard’s faces, they can hear it too.

 _Dear me,_ rasps the voice, throbbing through his head like a migraine and making his vision swim, _they built the Speakers smarter back in my day._

Alucard lunges toward her, but a sudden blast of snow and shards of ice whip up across the floor and slam into his face and chest as he dashes toward the witch; he stumbles, and his strike goes wide.

Trevor just has time to blink at Sypha, whose hair is now crackling with static as her feet raise ever so slightly from the ground.

“Well,” she says, “I guess this explains the feeling of impending doom.”

 

Then the light flashes in the witch’s palm, and in an instant Sypha is thrown upward some ten or fifteen feet, wide-eyed and surrounded by glimmering flickers of ice blue light. For a moment she’s silhouetted in the air, arms wide, neck thrown back, and then there’s another flash of light, and Trevor can hear himself shouting hoarsely, or maybe Alucard, or maybe both of them at once –

“SYPHA!”

 

 _Oh, how sweet_ , laughs the voice, drilling its way into Trevor’s brain and digging in its teeth, _How sweet, how sweet. Such desperation. Now, tell me, did you need this for something?_

He watches in horror as Sypha holds out the glass bottle, her arm jerking forward as the blue light arcs around her hand.

“I’m not- doing that-” she manages, through gritted teeth, and then gasps as her mouth snaps shut and bites down on her own tongue.

_Spoiling the fun, brat girl. Tell me. You. The handsome one. Did you need this for something?_

Trevor looks at Alucard. Alucard looks at Trevor, who – after a moment of internal debate that isn’t as long as he’d like to pretend it is - gives him a slow nod.

 

“My dear lady witch,” says Alucard, bowing stiffly, his eyes darting up toward Sypha as blood begins to trickle out of her mouth, “If you would be so kind as to put our companion down-”

There’s a horrible rattling hiss. _I said the handsome one, didn’t I?_ whispers the witch, her ice-glow eyes turning slowly toward Trevor. _No manners, any of you. No manners._

“Uh,” says Trevor. “Me? I’m the-”

_Do you need this?_

 

As the witch speaks, Sypha’s arm yanks horribly forward, and she swallows down a cry, tears springing up in her eyes. The bottle of oil glitters blue as static tremors down her fingers.

“The- do we- that old thing?” says Trevor. “No, nah, just a bit of junk, that, really. You can probably just let her hold on to it, actually, and if you could put her down that would also be-”

 

_Oh good. So if it’s just junk, you won’t mind if I… dispose of it?_

“Wait,” he begins, feeling beads of sweat crystallise on his forehead even as they form, “uh, no, that’s not what I-”

_So it is worth something to you?_

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Alucard sneaking up behind the witch, and takes a deep breath. “Um. Yes? Yeah, I guess it’s kind of-”

 

 _You know, I really don’t like liars_ , says the voice, and Sypha’s arms get thrown wide again with another burst of light, hovering there for a moment before her hands slam together with a sickening crunch of glass, the bottle shattering between her palms.

 

“No,” says Trevor, watching as shards of glass glitter down into the snow below. And then again – “No, no, don’t-” as Sypha’s hands jerk apart and smash back together with crackle after crackle of light, splintered glass crushing between her palms until the snow beneath her is spattered with tiny beads of bright red blood. And then the blue light flickers out, and she drops straight down from where she’s hovering above the ground like a puppet with the strings cut, crumpling onto the snow below with a muffled whimper.

 

Alucard leaps toward the witch with a snarl that’s all fang, but she spins round as if she knows he’s coming, and another pulse of light – warm, this time, red-gold and venomous – bursts from her palm and slams him backward. Another and another follow in quick succession, a vicious triptych of blows that sends him tumbling into a bookcase. Trevor catches a glance of angry red welts over his face, and a ragged hole in the side of his coat, before the bookcase topples over onto him and buries him entirely.

 

There’s a moment of horrible, ice-cool silence as the witch turns to face him, teeth bristling out of her too-wide smile.

 

Alright, thinks Trevor, brain whirring as he tries to still the trembling in his palms. So. Oil gone, magical trap setup presumably now pointless. Sypha curled up on the floor, clutching her bloodied hands to her chest. Alucard… he glances over at the pile of books and ice. Nothing moves. Alright. Alucard possibly also out of it right now. Okay. Fine.

 

And by ‘fine’, of course, he means ‘absolutely not fine, everything is completely fucked, fucking hell, fuck’. But he’s a Belmont, and what Belmonts do is fight monsters. So he squares up, cracks the whip, and stares the witch down with his best and most defiant growl.

 

“Go on then,” he says, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from the bottom of my horrible little gremlin heart, im sorry that i must put our intrepid heroes through all this - I'll try not to leave yall on this horrendible cliffhanger for toooo long. there's another couple chapters in this but. we approach the end. shit is, as they say, Getting Real. 
> 
> as ever im immensely thankful to all you lovely folk who leave comments and kudos - this is the first longform thing I've written in a LONG while and I sometimes feel suuuper rusty and unprepared so... it's really seriously heartening to get such lovely feedback. <3


	37. Chapter 37

The whip slashes across her face with a satisfyingly loud _crack_ and the witch stumbles backward, clutching at her mouth as swirls of ether coil out of the ragged wound. She shrieks as Trevor pushes the advantage, gritting his teeth, bringing the whip down again and again, tearing shreds of blue smoke from her arms as she raises them up to shelter her face from the blows.

 

He’s expecting, honestly, to get blasted into next week for even attempting to go toe-to-toe with the mad bastard. But he pushes forward regardless, cracking the whip and digging his boots into the snow, spreading his weight as he waits for her to strike back.

 

Only the blow doesn’t come, so he lashes out again, snapping the whip toward her through the freezing air – but she ducks back, and back again, avoiding the blows rather than countering them as he presses forward.

 

At that, Trevor hesitates, watching intently for a sign that she’s feinting, that she’s only backing up in preparation to strike. She snarls, and there’s a momentary flicker of light between her palms that makes him flinch away - but there’s no sudden burst of blue, no ozone crackle of magic in the air. Instead, there’s just a vague fluttering pulse of energy between her hands that fizzes and hisses, slowly brightening as she gestures around it. But… slowly. Huh. She cradles the light close to her chest and shifts backward, cowering out of Vampire Killer’s reach.

 

“You don’t like the whip much, huh?”

She hisses. _Filled with spite, that thing. Stinging, vicious, bitter spite._ She sounds more annoyed than truly afraid, but it’s something. It's a start.

Trevor grins. “I think you might be projecting slightly.”

_Smart words won’t save you, boy._

“Wasn’t counting on it. I was more counting on this,” he says, brandishing the whip again and taking a step toward her.

 

She howls, gliding backward toward the nearest row of bookcases with a grimace as Vampire Killer cracks over her head. _Back! Keep it away!_

Trevor keeps a hand on the whip, but he raises his palms slowly and comes to a halt, planting his feet firmly in the snow. “Alright. I’m staying back, I’m staying back. Look, I-” he glances over his shoulder, taking in Sypha, still curled on the floor, and the vague, sluggish shifting of the pile of books Alucard is buried under. “Fucking hell. You don’t want to fight? Me neither. You don’t want to get hit? Fair enough. You don’t like the whip? Fine. Fucking fine then, I won’t use it. But if I do that – if I leave you be - then you have to go get in the fucking jar over there and stop breaking my fucking library with your magical bullshit. And if you _dare_ lay another finger on my- my…” he hesitates, feeling his heart flutter a little in his chest, and then settles for, “um, my… friends? Oh god. It’s- we- anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that if you hurt them again, I’ll tear your scrawny ghost head from your scrawny ghost body and shove it up your-”

 

Her laugh swells up with the wind, low and persistent as it drills into his head. _Do you think you can ask me nicely and I’ll go away? Confine myself willingly to imprisonment and torment just because you ask it of me?_

He shrugs, readying Vampire Killer for another strike. “Well, it was worth a try.”

As he brings the whip down she shrieks, eyes bulging – but even as she cringes away from the impact, the light is beginning to brighten around her, her hands shifting around a glowing blaze of blue as she moves. Oh, that’s not good. That’s really not good.

Still, Trevor doesn’t let up; he circles to the right and moved slowly toward her, raining blows down along the side of her body as he goes – her chest, her leg, an exposed sliver of neck that gleams out from beneath her tangled, matted hair.

 

This time, though, she doesn’t back away. _Pain is temporal,_ she growls, her brow furrowing as the light flares once more and the whip-wounds across her chest begin to knit themselves together, _but I am eternal and you cannot stop me_. _Not with spells, not with blades, and certainly not with a few mumbled blessings on the pommel of a whip._

 

And then she lunges forward, the blue light between her palms flaring red, and a bolt of fire shoots toward him. He ducks the first bolt, and the next one goes wide, but when a third rockets toward him he doesn’t have time to do anything other than throw his hands up over his face and wait for the blow to hit.

 

Only it doesn’t. He blinks his eyes open to see the flame frozen in the air, suspended a few inches from his face for a fraction of a second before it wheels back round toward the witch. He glances over his shoulder in time to see Sypha hauling herself to her feet with her teeth gritted, holding out her bloodied hands in a familiar casting gesture. The witch dismisses the flame with a flicker of blue as it hurtles toward her, and Sypha snarls.

“You fucking bastard,” she spits - and as she flings both hands forward, the shards of glass embedded in her palms go flying forward, glittering through the air with razor-blade precision. They pelt into their target in a flurry of shining light and blue-flecked blood, peppering the witches face, her chest, her great, bulging yellow eyes.

 

She wails as the glass scatters across her pupils. Trevor takes the opening to crack the whip across her chest once more while she’s clawing miserably at her face, and at that she looses a howl that shakes the rafters and tumbles books from shelves high above as the ground below them trembles. And then she goes snarling round the corner of a bookcase and out of sight, leaving specks of treacle-thick blue blood specked across the snow in her wake.

 

Trevor catches Sypha’s arm as she starts after the witch, fireball already forming in her hand, glare steely.

“What?”

“Wait. She’s weakened, I think, but a cornered fox is far more likely to bite. We’ll go together.”

Sypha blinks. “We- fine.” She deflates slightly, leaning into him. Her voice is a little thick, blood still oozing slowly from the corner of her mouth where she’d bitten her tongue earlier. “Where’s-”

 

Trevor glances over at the pile of books and debris and splintered planks that are slowly shifting aside as Alucard hauls himself out of the wreckage of what looks to be several bookcases and at least one china cabinet. Vivid red welts streak across his brow and over his cheek, and his coat has been torn open, along with the shirt beneath.

 

“I’m here,” he says, shivering slightly as he finally manages to yank his leg free from under what looks like a marble bust of one of the more muscular Belmonts. “You know, I’m really beginning to get tired of being thrown into bookcases.”

 

Trevor holds his hand out, and Alucard takes it gladly.

“Oh!” says Sypha, gasping as she watches the welts across Alucard's face and chest begin to melt away before her eyes, “Oh, all those burns, you’re-”

“Healing myself. Perks of having eaten recently,” he murmurs, scanning the room intently. “Which- uh,” his gaze flickers down to her, cheeks pink. “You know. Thank you for that. And you, Trevor, obviously. It was… very… um. Anyway.” His eyes flick back up to the snowstorm around them. “Where is she?”

Trevor grunts. “Hiding behind a bookcase. Didn’t much like my whip.”

“Makes sense,” nods Alucard, cupping Sypha’s bloodied hands in his and bringing them to his mouth almost absent-mindedly, pressing kisses to the myriad of cuts and nicks in the delicate flesh of her palms. When he draws away the skin is smooth again, fresh and clean and unhurt. “It’s clear that she has a marked dislike of-”

“I hurt my tongue, too,” says Sypha, gazing up at him from beneath her lashes, her tone soft and almost shy. Alucard grins as he leans down to kiss her mouth, and when they break apart they just stare at one another for a long, tender moment, their hands laced together as though they’re dancing.

 

Trevor clears his throat. “The witch, guys.”

Alucard looks suitably bashful. “I- right, yes. Sorry. What was I saying?”

“I mentioned the whip-”

“Oh! Yes. It is a relief, I must say, that Vampire Killer is effective against her, at least. I don’t think my sword was really making much of a dent. But it makes sense - she’s clearly averse to blessed objects, isn’t she? The reliquary, the whip, the oil…” He sighs. “Fucking shit. The oil. What are we going to do about the oil?”

 

Sypha is still staring up at Alucard, eyes full of wonder, but at the mention of the oil her gaze sombers slightly. “I’m not sure. The binding clearly needs it, because she’s in the magic circle but she’s not being dragged into the jar… I don’t know. Perhaps- Trevor, didn’t you mention finding some holy water earlier?”

He nods, scrabbling in his pocket to pull out one of the vials of holy water he’d found among the assorted mess in the cabinets during his search of the library. “Yeah. Got a couple bottles of it. Think it’ll work?”

She sighs. “It has to. It’s all we’ve got.”

Alucard nods grimly. “Failing that I suppose we keep fighting and hope we can kill her, but-”

 

_And how are you going to kill something that’s already dead?_

 

The voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere at once, thrumming with an electric crackle that makes the hairs on Trevor’s arms stand on end. He spins around and readies his whip, feeling rather than seeing Alucard and Sypha move up until they’re all back-to-back, weapons ready, hands poised.

“It’s not very polite to listen in to other people’s conversations,” says Trevor, because he can’t not run his fucking mouth when he’s nervous.

The witch laughs, slow and rich and deep. She sounds a lot less haggard than she did a few minutes before, which is… alarming. She seems to be able to recuperate her powers a hell of a lot faster than Trevor had hoped.

“Which bookcase did she go behind?” hisses Alucard, eyes darting around the room, lashes blinking back the still-falling snow.

“Uh,” says Trevor, glancing frantically from bookcase to bookcase. “Um. That one! No, wait, the one next to it. Or maybe-”

“You should have let me go after her earlier,” says Sypha, and then she squares her shoulders and raises her voice. “There’s no point hiding, you- you horrible ugly lady! You can’t leave the circle no matter what you do.” She drops her voice again, turning to Alucard with a slight frown. “Uh, she can’t, can she? Do we know if any of the binding is working?”

Alucard shrugs. “I’m not totally sure, although-”

 

There’s another loud, echoing laugh. _How long do you think your petty magics can hold me? How long do you think they can hold… us?_

“Us?” says Trevor, with a dawning feeling of dread.

 _My sisters approach_ , says the voice, humming discordantly as the wind picks up again. _Can’t you hear them knocking? The door is almost open, now._

 

As she speaks, Trevor feels the air waver, and for a moment the bookcases are gone, replaced by a jagged landscape of rocks and stunted wind-blasted trees. Everything is ice, horizon to horizon, and the wind blows such a bitter chill that he can barely breathe. And around, all around, are… people?

 

Hardly people. They’re shifting, half here and half elsewhere. Shapes in the ice. Too many legs, too many arms. Too tall, eyes that pop and veins that bulge. Long tumble-down hair and curl-clawed hands with too many knuckles.

 

And when they see him, they open up their cavernous, tooth-lined maws, and smile.

 

Trevor stumbles backward, bumping into Alucard, clutching for Sypha’s hand - and in an instant they’re back in the library. And the witch is there, right there, hovering not three feet in front of them and grinning – in a horribly literal sense - from ear to ear. She’s got blue light dancing between her hands once more, a wicked gleam reflected in her cat-sharp eyes; the scattered shards of glass across her pupils don’t seem to be impeding her vision at all.

“Sypha,” says Trevor, fumbling to press the bottle of holy water into her hand, “can you-”

“On it.” She squeezes his hand, just once, as she takes the bottle - and then she’s gone, her footsteps swift across the snow behind him as she races off toward the jar at the centre of the magic circle.

 

Alucard brushes up against his shoulder, sword drawn, awaiting orders.

“Flanks,” says Trevor, and Alucard nods, shifting seamlessly into wolf form. The sword stays hanging in the air for a moment, then slashes right around the witch as Alucard wheels round on her left to snap at her ankles, hackles raised, teeth bared.

Trevor takes advantage of the witches' momentary confusion to lash out with Vampire Killer, and she wheels almost into Alucard’s waiting jaws as the blow strikes across the side of her head and sends her shrieking backwards.

 

She pulls herself up to her full height as she turns back to face him. _Enough_ , she growls, slamming her hands together. The light flares so bright that Trevor closes his eyes, jagged snarls of blue criss-crossing the darkness behind his eyes. And then there’s a sudden howl, and a rush of wind, and his stomach drops, and- oh shit. He blinks his eyes open, and has just enough time to see the beams of the ceiling soaring past way, way too close before he goes tumbling back down towards the frozen ground below.

 

He lands with a crunch that makes his head spin, but – thank fuck – he does at least land in a snow drift that seems to have cushioned the worst of the impact. He lies there, just for a moment, snow in his mouth yet again, his whole body aching and freezing and in pain. And he thinks, well, Sypha better get that holy water in the jar pronto, because he’s not sure if he’s up to go another round against the witch right now.

 

And then he hears a muffled, “Trevor, oh my god,” from above, and feels hands digging through the snow to help haul him out.

“Mmmph,” he says, snorting snow out of his nose and shaking it from his hair as Sypha hauls him upright. He winces when she pulls the arm he landed on out from beneath him and – yeah, shit, that’s gonna bruise like an absolute motherfucker. And he’s definitely cracked a couple ribs. Fucking bullshit.

“Trevor,” she says, her face pinched, “Trevor, it didn’t- the holy water didn’t work, I put it in the jar but it didn’t do anything and- oh god, look!”

He glances up at that, and takes in their surroundings. He must have landed a little way away from the witch and Alucard, because he can’t see either of them, but what he can see is… well, it’s not exactly the library any more. The strange dark landscape from before is flickering in and out of view like a flame in the wind, the bookcases shifting into snow-draped rocks and strange swirling monuments of ice, and then back again, and then…

 

And the figures. God. The figures. They’re still shadowy, indistinct as the windswept dark landscape from beyond shudders in and out of reality, but they somehow seem closer now. Over the roar of the wind he can hear something, too, if he listens carefully – voices, hundreds of reedy, rasping voices that burrow into his head and refuse to leave, chanting in a language he doesn’t understand.

 

“Can- shit,” he says, “Shit, Sypha, I don’t- I don’t know anything about this stuff. Alucard. We need Alucard. Where’s-”

There’s another flash of light, and they both cling to one another, cowering against the floor as a bolt of blazing blue comes flying across the room toward them and plummets into a nearby snowdrift.

 

There’s a hiss of smoke and a slight whimper, and then Alucard hauls himself out of the pile of snow, his fur steaming slightly for a moment before he shifts into human form and slumps forward, panting slightly.

“Oh,” says Sypha, with the kind of resigned acceptance that can only come from being well and truly up shit creek without a paddle, “Well, that’s where he is, I guess.”

“Thanks,” says Trevor. “I wouldn’t have noticed him there if you didn’t point him o-”

 

They all flinch again as Alucard’s sword comes flying after him and lands blade-down in the floor, quivering slightly.

“That’s going to fuck the edge up,” he says, glumly, and then, “Oh shit,” as the witch begins to crackle into view through the storm, stalking toward them as low, humming laughter echoes around her. “Sypha, did you manage to-”

 

“It didn’t work,” she says, sudden icy tears beginning to well in her eyes, “I don’t know what to do.”

Alucard’s face falls, just for a moment, but he steels himself. “Then we fight her,” he says, grasping the pommel of his sword and yanking it unceremoniously out of the library floor. “Maybe if we can weaken her enough, the binding will take without the oil.”

“But the other witches-” begins Trevor.

This time it’s Sypha who speaks, squaring her shoulders as she stumbles to her feet, breath ragged and shivering visibly now. “She’s their link to this world. If we can seal her away, they’re not coming through.”

“We can-” Alucard hesitates for a moment, clenching his jaw. “We’re not fucking dying here. Not like this, not after everything we’ve done.”

She grips his palm in hers and nods solemnly. “No. You’re right. We’re not. We just _can’t_.”

Neither of them looks especially convinced. But Alucard grins gamely, even though his sword hand is visibly shaking, and he turns to catch Trevor’s eye. “Exactly,” he says; “We wouldn’t want Belmont to die a virgin, after all.”

 

Trevor hauls himself to his feet with a sigh, then grimly sticks a hand back into the snow to curl his frozen fingers around the pommel of Vampire Killer and pull it toward him.

Sypha and Alucard reach out to him, and he stumbles forward to join them, ribs twinging as he goes. He wants to say- but he can't. He can't. Alucard has the right idea, talking shit like that - because if any of them say anything serious now, they’ll have to admit that they really are fucked beyond any possible hope of salvation. So he doesn’t say anything. He just flips Alucard off cheerfully and winks at Sypha when she scoffs at him, and takes a long, careful look at their faces before he turns back to face the witch.

 

She doesn’t even bother to speak to them, this time.

 

The dark shapes of other figures have coalesced around her as she moves through the snow, and the blue light now seems to come from them as much as from her. It flares up with a lazy wave of her hand and flings Alucard to one side as he darts forward. Another wave of sends Sypha’s fireball soaring back toward her with a shrieking laugh. Trevor raises Vampire Killer, and feels a hundred shadowy, overlong hands clasp around it for a moment before it’s tugged from his grip - and then there’s a bang and another flash of light slams into his chest, and he goes flying back into the snow.

 

His head smacks against the floor and he bites back a shout, wincing as his bad arm crunches against something cold and metal and- the jar. It’s the fucking jar.

 

And then he thinks. Wait. Shit. Oil of Saints. Holy because a Saint’s earthly body has touched it, that was what Alucard had said, right? So… shit. Shit! He fumbles with the lid of the jar, wrenching it open by sheer force of will with near-frozen fingers, jaw clenched, eyes on the witch as she closes in, still laughing, slow and unconcerned.

 

And then he pulls the letter from Walpurga from his pocket, glances down at her scribbled, tight-spaced scrawl, and the occasional blots of ink, and the faint marks of fingerprints against the dry parchment, and he thinks - well, it can’t make things worse, can it?

 

And then he throws the letter in the jar, closes his eyes, very silently offers a very apologetic prayer to Walpurga to maybe possibly come and deal with this fucking witch just one more time, please, and then…

 

And then everything goes blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slow chapter, sorry - no good reason, this one was just tough to write. but it's pretty long! so. u kno. silver linings.
> 
> but, yeah, after this there's only one (maybe two depending on formatting) chapter(s) left in this fic now! pretty crazy to be this close to the end. im almost done writing it!! that feels... weird. good? but sad too. 
> 
> anyway! hope u enjoyed, I promise next chapter will contain WAY more dick jokes and WAY less of our heros contemplating their own mortality. as ever i love all yall who comment and leave kudos, u are my shining and beautiful angels. u are stars. <3


	38. Chapter 38

Everything happens in a bit of a wild rush after that – all disjointed images and flashes of light. The chalk lines of Sypha and Alucard’s magic circle glowing bright under the snow. The blue witchlight flying toward the open jar in Trevor’s hands. The scream the witch makes as her body contorts and twists into the jar.

 

Trevor can only stare, open-mouthed, as she digs her nails into the floor, clawing through snow and ice into the floorboards below - but the pull of the binding is too strong. The last thing into the jar is her head, her cat eyes bulging as her skull compresses grotesquely into the jar, shedding blue smoke and crackling fire and screaming the whole way down. And then her mouth is gone, and the screaming stops. Trevor peers into the jar, and sees a single eye glaring up at him from a cloud of misty blue ether with indescribable rage.

 

Sypha is beside him almost before he notices that she’s running in in his direction.

“The lid!” she splutters, jamming it onto the jar just as the eye inside begins to narrow and crackle electric blue.

It takes him half a second to realise what’s going on, and then he slams his hand down on top of hers as the lid bucks up, gritting his teeth as the jar rattles furiously in their hands. Their combined efforts are barely enough to keep the thing from blowing open, and Trevor can feel beads of sweat breaking out on his brow as he tries to screw the damn thing shut while it bucks and shakes.

 

And then a third hand comes to rest on top of Sypha’s and Trevor’s, and the rattling comes to an abrupt halt.

 

“Show off,” says Trevor, unable to stop himself from smiling as Alucard carefully pulls the still-trembling jar toward him, his hands steady despite the tremendous force still rattling about within.

Alucard grins back, deftly screwing the lid down in a single fluid motion. “For you, Belmont? Always.”

 

As the lid finally closes for good, the glowing lines of the magic circle beneath the snow fade away, the air ripples, the strange half-human shapes that had loomed around them shimmer and vanish, and when Trevor looks up the library is- well, it’s the library again. No weird arctic landscape, no shifting needle-mouthed witches, no trees. Just a lot of broken bookcases and snow.

 

There’s a hushed silence for a moment as Trevor stares around the room, barely able to believe that it’s all over – and then Sypha shrieks and throws her arms around his neck.

“Trevor! We did it!” She cups his face in her hands, gazing up at him with utter adoration. “ _You_ did it- you… what did you do? How did you-”

“I- um- well, I didn’t do anything much, really,” he says, with a slightly embarrassed shrug, “It was the letter.”

“The letter?”

“The one from Walpurga. I threw it in the jar and the witch sort of…” he waves his hand vaguely at the ragged claw marks in the floor. “So I guess it worked? I just figured that since it was something a Saint had touched it was worth a try.”

“Holy shit,” says Sypha, “I didn’t even think about- oh, that’s so clever, I suppose it must be-”

“A contact relic,” breathes Alucard, eyes wide, “Of course. Of _course_. Trevor Belmont, you are- god, you’re brilliant.”

His hand comes up to clasp Trevor’s shoulder as he leans in for a kiss - but Sypha beats him to it, elbowing him out of the way with a mischievous little grin as she slides her hands into Trevor’s hair.

 

It takes him a second to respond, still slightly stunned by the events of the past few minutes, but then she presses in and nips softly at his bottom lip, and his body mostly takes over from there. He kisses back, pulling her closer until she’s sprawled across his lap, making tiny soft noises into his mouth, tugging gently at his hair, shifting subtly against his thigh with a slow, languid sort of intent that sends thrills up his spine. She pulls back for a second, red-lipped and bright-eyed, and it looks as though she’s about to say something – but then Alucard has a hand on Trevor’s chin, and another winding around his waist.

“Alright, come on,” he says, “It’s my turn, Sypha, don’t hog the hero of the hour.”

“But he’s so handsome,” she pouts, “And I wasn’t done with him yet.”

“Patience,” he smirks, winking smugly at her before leaning into Trevor for a breathless, utterly euphoric kiss. He throws himself into it with such force that they both end up collapsing back into a snowdrift, dragging a laughing Sypha down with them.

 

So Trevor ends up flat on his back in the snow while Sypha and Alucard take it in turns to press delighted kisses across his face – or, rather, they both try to kiss him over and over and mostly at the same time, but there’s only so much of Trevor’s face to go round, so they keep bumping into each other and pushing and shoving and giggling between kisses.

 

“You guys-” he manages to splutter out, as Alucard kisses along the line of his jaw and Sypha briefly draws back from his mouth to press feathery little kisses over his browbone, “I- watch my ribs, hey watch-”

“Sorry,” says Sypha, rolling over a little so she’s no longer leaning on Trevor’s chest before gently tilting his jaw toward her so she can pull him in for another kiss.

“Sorry,” mumbles Alucard, although unlike Sypha he doesn’t shift his weight – he’s distracted, his hands palm sliding inside Trevor’s furs as he tongues over the pulse-point on his neck with evident interest. Trevor should probably be more worried about that than he is, but… well, it’s Alucard. It’s not as though he’d let just any old vampire get up close and personal with his throat like this. And, to be perfectly frank, he doubts that blood sucking is actually all that high on Alucard’s priority list right now, if the way his hands are sliding under Trevor’s shirt is anything to go by.

 

Trevor lets him carry on for a moment or two, until he feels himself begin to shiver between Alucard’s icy palms on his front and the damp chill of the snow sinking into his clothes beneath him. He grabs hold of Alucard’s wrists. “Alright, alright, enough of that, fangs.”

Alucard goes still, looking suddenly mortified. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- too forward?”

Trevor snorts. “No, but I’m pretty sure that if I don’t get up in the next thirty seconds my butt is going to freeze itself to the floor.”

Sypha shivers slightly next to him, tucking her face into his neck with a little huff of air. “You know what, I think my butt is already frozen to the floor, actually.”

Alucard pauses, taking a slow, shuddering breath. “Ah. I-” he looks up, blinking at the snow and ice and shattered cabinets around them as though he’s only just realised where they are. “Oh! Yes. Snow. I forgot about the snow.”

“And you’ve got cold fucking hands,” grumbles Trevor, as the slim fingers inside his shirt relax slightly and begin to slide up his chest once more.

 

Alucard goes pink, pulling abruptly away from Trevor and brushing snow off his torn coat as he scrambles to his feet. “Sorry. Sorry! I was… distracted. Um. Here, let me help you up, are you-”

“Fine,” says Trevor, trying to stand on his own and then reluctantly accepting Alucard’s offered hand when his ribs twinge in protest. He grimaces, clutching his chest, and leans into Alucard’s shoulder with a grunt.

“Are you sure?”

He rests his forehead on Alucard’s shoulder and sighs, wincing as the heavy breath sends another dart of pain lancing through his chest. “Yeah. It’s just ribs. Should heal themselves up with a bit of time.”

 

Sypha comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his stomach, pressing her head against his back with a thoughtful little hum. “Can’t you do something about that, Alucard?”

“About Trevor’s ribs? No. My capacity for healing is mostly limited to my own body, unfortunately.”

“But you fixed my hands earlier. And my tongue, come to think of it.”

“That’s- my saliva has some, uh, limited healing properties, but it’s not able to repair anything much more complex than a shallow bite wound, I-”

“So you can’t just, like, lick him better?”

Alucard blinks. “His… ribs?”

Trevor can hear Sypha snickering into his back. “Well, you can _start_ with his ribs, but I’m sure we can find some other parts of Trevor worth licking, too.”

 

Alucard is laughing even as he rolls his eyes. “Sypha, for god’s sake, you are utterly incorrigible, I swear to-” he pauses as Trevor shivers slightly against him, his gaze turning focused as he takes a step back to observe them both, brow creased. “Well, perhaps I ought to bemoan your consistently filthy mind somewhere a little warmer.”

“Like in bed?” asks Sypha, poking her head round from behind Trevor’s shoulder and wiggling her eyebrows.

“Mmm. Something like that.”

Trevor slings an arm round Sypha and kisses the top of her head with a contented sigh. “Have I ever told you that you’re a genius?”

“Frequently, but by all means, carry on.”

 

Alucard scratches his chin thoughtfully. “You know, bed is probably a good idea, actually – the room we were in last night doesn’t have a fireplace, but there are plenty that do. Come to think of it, there are probably still fires laid in some of the guest rooms. If we find one that’s got a decent stock of logs I can get a fire going for you both that should last us a few hours at least, and then if I find some clean clothes…”

“You are tragically lacking in your ability to appreciate a good innuendo,” says Sypha, shaking her head sadly. “Although I’ll admit that a fire does sound pretty nice.”

“Mmm,” says Alucard, but he doesn’t really seem to be listening - he’s mostly mumbling to himself at this point, chewing his lip thoughtfully as he frowns down at his feet, “… I suppose there’s probably a decent stock of coal in the cellar by the green study… and if there are logs in the storage room at the base of the tower near the little pantry… hmm…”

“Also,” says Sypha, gesturing at the snow-covered shelves around them as Alucard continues to mumble vague thoughts on which bedrooms might be most easily heated, and the likely whereabouts of logs in the castle, “we should probably deal with all this snow before it starts to melt.”

“We-” he frowns. “Oh. Shit. Yes, we really should. If you two go and get warm I can… find a shovel or something… uh. Hmm.” His head tilts to the side, eyes sweeping over the vast library and the thick drifts of snow, almost knee-deep in places at this point. “That might take me… quite a while.”

 

Sypha laughs, stepping away from the others and pulling her hands into a casting gesture Trevor doesn’t recognise. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve got this.” She closes her eyes, and pulls her hand toward her chest, and Trevor feels himself automatically reach out toward Alucard as the snow under their feet begins to shift, rising up to swirl around Sypha as she slowly moves her hands through a fluid series of gestures, her breath fogging up the air around her.

 

Alucard takes his hand, and they watch as snow and chunks of ice peel away from the floor, rising up and swirling around Sypha until she’s completely engulfed in a glimmering cloud of white.

“Holy shit,” says Alucard.

Trevor shuffles closer to him, whistling appreciatively as Sypha raises her hands and sends the whole vast flurry of snow and ice flying up out of the hole where Alucard’s hastily-fixed library roof used to be. “She’s quite something, huh?”

“Just a bit,” says Alucard, a little faintly, watching as the last of the ice goes flying out into the dark night above the broken ceiling.

 

Sypha turns round to face them, brushing a few stray flakes of snow from her palms with a beaming smile. “We still need to fix the roof at some point soon, and clear up all the broken bits and pieces around here - but that should do for now, I think.” She holds her hands out toward Trevor and Alucard, her smile turning warmer, more intimate. “Shall we, my dears?”

 

It takes a frankly absurd amount of time for them to actually all get into bed – the rope hanging down from the wine cellar is a bitch to climb with broken ribs, to start with, and then they realise that they’ve left the jar down in the library and Sypha insists on going back to get it, just in case. Then Alucard spends what feels like an age weighing up the merits and drawbacks of the various rooms with half-decent fireplaces, and another age trying to remember which of them were ‘damaged in the fighting’. Trevor is pretty sure that that’s just a polite way of saying that some of the rooms have dead bodies in them, but he decides that now probably isn’t the best time to pry about that.

 

And there’s kissing, of course – lots of kissing. A ridiculous amount of kissing. It’s a wonder that they make it to a room, really, but Alucard is very insistent that they get somewhere warm and light a fire, and neither Trevor nor Sypha has the heart to argue with him when he keeps pulling that concerned little face he makes when he’s worried about them.

 

When they do finally stumble into a bedroom – Sypha already shedding furs before they’re all the way through the door, Trevor laughing as she yanks his coat off and throws it out into the corridor – Alucard makes a beeline for the fireplace. Sure enough, there are logs stacked in the hearth ready to light, and he kneels in front of it, fretting over the amount of fuel and fiddling with the placement of various bits and pieces of kindling. He’s starting to fuss around looking for a flint before Sypha waves him aside and lights the fire with a click of her fingers, shrugging off the last of her furs so she’s down to just her nightgown, one sleeve hanging off her shoulder, the seam she’d torn earlier slowly unravelling so that it’s now slit up one side almost to her waist.

 

“Alucard,” she says, her voice low and soft as she gently rests a palm on his cheek. “Enough. Stop worrying about it.”

“I- it’s just… you’re freezing,” he mutters, resting his hand over hers and squeezing gently, his brow creased.

“Then come to bed,” she says, stepping slowly backward and tugging him toward her ever so carefully, “and warm me up.”

 

Alucard goes without another word, looking about as dazed and tongue-tied as Trevor feels. He stumbles slightly as his knees hit the bed – a moment of imperfection at odds with his usual uncanny grace. It makes him suddenly look unsure, and softer, and more human. He’s beautiful. They both are. Sypha tugs him down after her onto the covers with the same determined expression she pulls when she’s focusing on a particularly difficult spell.

 

Alucard lets himself tumble after her, laughing as his hair cascades forward into her face and she splutters. “Sorry,” he says, sitting back on his haunches and fumbling in his trouser pocket for a ribbon, “let me tie this up, I don’t think I can bear to get it tangled again.”

Sypha snorts, and props herself up on one shoulder, smoothing a hand along Alucard’s thigh as she fixes Trevor with an imperious gaze. “Darling,” she says, her eyes gleaming in the firelight, “are you joining us?”

Trevor makes an indistinct squeaking noise, suddenly feeling significantly warmer than should be possible, given that he has snow in his hair and he still can’t really feel most of his toes.

Alucard turns his head slightly, glancing at Trevor from under his lashes as he pulls his hair into a hasty braid, clever fingers darting through his golden locks, the red ribbon flashing between them as he goes. He doesn’t say anything – just smiles, and licks his lips.

 

“I-” mutters Trevor, halfway over to the bed before he’s even realised he’s moving, “Christ, you’re both so-” he stumbles, almost kicking over the jar, and pauses, frowning down at it. Alucard must have ditched it there when they came in. “We should probably put this outside.”

Alucard raises an eyebrow.

“I just feel weird about it! What if she’s watching from in there?”

Sypha giggles at that, and even Alucard has to smile. “Go on,” he says, pulling the bow tight at the end of his braid and shaking his head fondly. “Put the witch outside, then.”

 

He shoves the jar out of the door and pulls it closed, bracing himself against the handle and listening to the soft laughter and faint sounds of kissing behind him. Alright. So this is… happening. Holy shit. Holy _shit_. His legs feel like fucking jelly.

“Are you sure-” he begins, his hand still gripping the door handle, not quite daring to face them both.

“Yes,” says Sypha.

“Yes,” says Alucard, and then, with a fond sort of exasperation, “oh, stop being a cocktease. We want you, Belmont. Get over here.”

 

Trevor takes a deep breath, and lets go of the door handle. It’s only a few steps to the bed, and then two pairs of hands are pulling him gently down onto the feather-soft covers, and the fire is warm on his back, and he can’t stop smiling.

 

And, in fairness, neither can they.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright! sorry for the wait!! I'm very busy at the moment, but I finally found time to finish this chapter today!
> 
> this is the penultimate chapter, although I'm going to write the 'missing scene' between this one and the next and post it up as a oneshot once I've finished this fic, for those of you who want The Smut :3c
> 
> as ever, comments, kudos, and rare magical ingredients that I can use in the foul rituals which power my phylactery are hugely appreciated. imma be very soppy with u all in the end notes of the last chapter but, for now, enjoy !! ^_^


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: further discussion of Alucard's Perfect Dick

Afterwards – well, not immediately afterwards, because they all pass the fuck out and sleep once they’re done – but after that… well, after that they go again, and then Trevor takes another nap, but after _that_ …

 

Well, the point is that, toward the end of the next day, he eventually resurfaces, drifting into wakefulness in a cloud of pillows, achy and bruised and utterly soul-deep content. Sypha is plastered across his chest, the soft curve of her body bathed in late-afternoon sunlight. Her hair is a mess and she’s snoring loudly – something she does all the time in the wagon and then denies furiously when questioned about it. It wouldn’t be the first time Trevor’s been woken by the ridiculous snorting snuffling noises she makes in her sleep, but in a strange way he’s become rather fond of the sound. There’s something comforting about knowing that she’s still there, still sleeping, that she hasn’t realised that he’s a complete mess of a man and decided to fuck off in the middle of the night.

 

He kisses her forehead and she makes a quiet burbling noise, smiling softly in her sleep as she snuggles closer to him. Trevor watches her for a long moment, his heart feeling all fluttery and light beneath his ribs. She’s still snoring, and he’s pretty sure she’s drooling on his chest, and she’s perfect.

 

A shift of the light on the bed draws his attention to the window, where Alucard is standing, resplendent and entirely naked, surveying the golden world beyond with one hand on his hip and his hair tumbling out of its braid and over his shoulder.

“Morning,” says Trevor, his voice coming out a little gruffer than he’d expected, still thick with sleep.

Alucard yawns and stretches out in front of the window, glancing over his shoulder to raise a languid eyebrow at Trevor. “It’s nearly five in the afternoon, Belmont.”

“Alright. Afternoon, then.”

Alucard laughs, turning back to gaze out of the window with another lazy stretch of his arms. “Mmm. Sleep well?”

“Pretty well, yeah.”

“The bed was to your liking? There are others which are probably more luxurious, but-”

 

Trevor yawns, running his hand absent-mindedly over the curve of Sypha’s waist. “I mean, it’s no soft-ish looking patch of dirt under the least sparse tree near the road, but I guess that the literal feather bed you found us is acceptable, yeah.”

Alucard chuckles. “Point taken.”

“What about you?”

“Hmm?”

“Sleep well?”

He shrugs. “I had to keep the fire lit. I went to get more logs at one point and I found Cezar outside, pissing on the jar we put the witch in.”

“You- seriously?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Holy shit. I love that dog.”

“He’s a dreadful creature, but I think I might be starting to warm to him,” says Alucard, clearly trying to stifle a grin. “As to how I slept - I had nothing of importance to do other than tending to the fire, so I dozed, for the most part. I don’t need as much sleep as a human would, but it is… pleasant to have company. Less nightmares.”

“More snoring, though,” says Trevor, fondly patting Sypha’s head. “So much noise from such a small woman. It’s impressive, really.”

Alucard laughs. “Indeed.”

 

Trevor grins, still gently stroking Sypha’s shoulder as he watches Alucard sunning himself in the window for a while longer. Eventually he yawns, and says, “So, are you coming back to bed, or are you just going to stand there with your dick on display for the local peasantry?”

“I’m not- my dick is not _on display_ -” he splutters, spinning around with an expression of great indignance, “I’m just looking out of the window.”

“Naked.”

“I- well, yes, but-”

Trevor snorts. “Look, I’m sure that the local farmhands aren’t complaining about the view. It’s a very nice dick.”

 

Alucard folds his arms and frowns, blotchy red blush spreading down his shoulders and onto his chest. “Well, I…” He sighs, shaking his head as he slowly shifts back over toward the bed. “Uh. Thank you?”

Trevor reaches a hand out to tug him down onto the bed. “C’mere.” He glances at Alucard’s steadily spreading blush with a smirk. “You know, for a guy who just had his wang out in broad daylight for all of Wallachia to see, you’re surprisingly easy to embarrass.”

Alucard slides under the covers with a glare. “Don’t say that.”

“What, wang? What’s wrong with-”

“It’s a stupid word.”

“How about… meat rod?”

“Don’t.”

“Trouser snake.”

“I swear to god, Belmont-”

“Man carrot.”

 

“I’ll fucking kill you,” says Alucard, giving Trevor a quick kiss before snuggling up next to him with a contented sigh.

Trevor kisses the top of his head, wrapping his free arm over his shoulder as he settles down into the bed. “Yeah? Because this doesn’t seem like the behaviour of a man who’s planning to kill me.”

“Mmm,” says Alucard, resting his hand over Sypha’s on Trevor’s chest and smiling softly to himself, “Well, that’s the point. I’m luring you into a false sense of security.”

“Ah, I see.”

Alucard hums, tilting his head up so he can press a kiss to the line of Trevor’s jaw, right where it meets his neck. “Is it working?”

 

Trevor looks down at the two figures curled up against him on either side amidst the covers, Sypha smiling slightly in her sleep, Alucard staring up at him, soft-eyed and gentle. Their hands entwined on his chest. The way their naked skin catches the late-afternoon light.

“Yeah,” he says, suddenly feeling a little choked up, “yeah, I feel… very secure, actually.”

“You’re such a sap, Belmont,” says Alucard, unable to keep the fondness out of his tone as he kisses his way along Trevor’s collarbone.

“Yeah, well. Don’t tell Sypha.”

Alucard snorts. “Your secret is safe with me.”

 

A warm, contented sort of silence falls in the room after that, and Trevor’s eyes are just beginning to drift closed again when Sypha makes a particularly loud snorting noise and rolls over slightly, blinking her eyes open in the late-afternoon light.

“Mmmph,” she mumbles, yawning loudly before tucking the covers up over her shoulder and snuggling closer against Trevor. “Oh, hello you,” she says, as he leans down to press a kiss to her forehead - and then she glances up at Alucard and beams. “And hello other you! Oooh, this is a nice way to wake up. I could get used to this. What time is it?”

“Five?” says Alucard, reaching over Trevor’s chest to tuck a lock of hair carefully behind her ear. “Something like that.”

“Five?! And nobody woke me up?”

Alucard shrugs. “It’s not like we have anything pressing to do.”

“I… huh. I suppose not.”

 

They all contemplate that for a moment – the prospect of finally being all in one place, together, with no world-ending calamity bearing down on them. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just time. Lots and lots of time.

 

“So… what are we going to do now?” says Trevor, slowly.

“There’s a question,” says Alucard, rather wryly.

“Well, in the short term, we need to make dinner,” says Sypha. “I want pie. No, soup. No- soup, and then pie. Mmm.”

“It’s too early for dinner,” says Alucard.

“It’s never too early for pie. Anyway, it takes ages to make a good one. We’ll need to start soon.”

Alucard rolls his eyes at her.

She ignores him. “In the long term, though… I don’t know.” She reaches out to touch Trevor’s cheek. “What do you want to do?”

 

Trevor blinks. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Both of you, actually.”

“I…” Trevor frowns, staring from Sypha to Alucard and back again. “I dunno. I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

“Alucard? What about you?”

He shrugs. “To be frank, I never expected to survive the fight with my father. Everything since then has been sort of me making it up as I go. I’m not- I don’t know. Anything I thought I wanted before seems so insignificant, now.”

 

Sypha sighs. “Oh, my darlings.” She props herself up on one elbow, reaching out to touch Alucard’s cheek, and then Trevor’s. “Well, we have some things we need to do here before we decide anything, hmm? The library roof, the hole in the wine cellar floor, the, uh…”

“Dead bodies?” says Alucard.

She nods. “The dead bodies. I mean, I don’t like to bring it up, but now it’s getting warmer they’re going to start to smell. And you don’t want them leaking on your lovely carpets, do you?”

He shivers slightly despite the warmth of the sun. “I- no. You’re right. I should deal with them.”

Trevor runs a comforting thumb over his arm and pulls him closer. “Sypha and I can do that bit, if it’s too much for you.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose-”

“Don’t be silly,” says Sypha, “I mean, what are friends for if not helping your clear the rotting corpses out of your crumbling family home?”

Alucard blinks. “I-”

“Look,” says Trevor, “it’s fine, we’ve dealt with plenty of gross shit over the past few months.”

“Exactly – I’ve been sharing a wagon with Trevor, after all,” says Sypha. “Do you know that he farts in his sleep?”

“I do not-” begins Trevor.

Sypha ignores him, leaning over his chest to give Alucard a winning wink. “You have so much to look forward to, my dear.”

 

Alucard laughs, partly at Sypha’s comment and partly at the indignant look on Trevor’s face. “Clearly." His expression sobers slightly, glancing from Trevor to Sypha and back with the faintest hint of pink playing over his cheekbones, “I, ah- you know, all jest aside I am… I’m glad you would have me with you. And I am very glad that you returned. Both of you.”

Sypha kisses him. “I’m sorry we didn’t come back sooner.”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, “I- it must have been shitty being stuck here on your own.”

“It must have been,” agrees Sypha; “I promise, as soon as we’ve got all the really super important things done here, we’ll go take a trip somewhere else. Somewhere absolutely ages and ages away.”

“We can visit your gran,” says Trevor.

“Oooh, we can! And my grandfather, of course.”

 

Alucard sighs. “I suppose. I just... would it be odd of me to say that I'm a little worried about leaving this place?"

Sypha cocks her head. "But it's made you so sad, Alucard. We can both see that."

 

He hums thoughtfully, re-adjusting the covers over himself with a little frown. “I- its strange, the castle is… it’s been torture, being here, but it isn’t- I don't know. I grew up here, after all. I was happy, once - we all were. It's..." he shrugs. "It's not- it isn't simple. How I feel." 

“It’s family,” says Trevor. Out of his corner of his eye he can see the window, and the sunlit remains of the Belmont ruins where the snow is already melting away. “It’s never going to be simple.”

“I suppose not. You know, sleeping under Gresit was the longest I’d ever been away from this house?”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I would wake up, sometimes, while we were all travelling together, and wish I was at home in my own bed. And then when I got home it was… hell.”

 

He’s silent for a long moment, clearly trying to collect his thoughts. Then he sighs. “But it isn’t- it’s different now you’re here. It's easier, just a bit.”

Sypha strokes his cheek. “That doesn’t mean that you don’t need some time away.”

“Maybe so.”

“It would be hard for anyone to stay here," she says, "After everything.”

He closes his eyes, pain flickering over his fine-boned features. "I know. But having you here has been so…” his eyes flutter open and he kisses them both – first Trevor, then Sypha, long and lingering and ever so slightly bittersweet. Then he grins, a little lopsidedly. “You realise you’ve been here less than a week, the pair of you? And that in that time I’ve felt more alive than I had in… god, I don’t know how long. I don’t want to lose that.”

“You won't," says Trevor, with a frown. "You do understand that we’re coming with you when you leave, right? Like, we’re not just going to boot you out of your house and tell you to go find something to do on your own?”

Alucard laughs. “Yes, I realise that. But…” He shakes his head. “The castle has been a lot of things to me over the years but it has always been, above all, somewhere that I can be fully myself. While we're here, I can be half vampire and half human without having to curb one side or the other, and Sypha can light a fire without watching over her shoulder to see if the villagers are readying their pitchforks, and you can be your charming excommunicate self without the scrutiny of the church, and all three of us can…” he waves a hand vaguely at their naked forms on the bed, blotchy red along the tips of his ears. “Um. You know.”

“Fuck?” supplies Sypha, barely managing to suppress a smirk at his evident embarrassment.

“I- well. Uh. Yes. That. But also-”

 

Trevor pats his arm. “You know, it’s a pretty big wagon. I think we’ll manage.”

Alucard laughs. “The physical logistics are not what concerns me. It’s just… people. Being around people. Having to pretend I'm something I'm not. I feel so at home, here, with you both, and I- the idea of, of what, of travelling places and having to stand a little apart, and introduce you as my friends and colleagues, and take up separate rooms in inns and-”  He shakes his head. “I suppose it’s a silly thing to be troubled by.”

“If it troubles you, then it isn’t silly,” says Sypha. “But I think you overestimate how much of a shit anyone is going to give about some slightly unusual sleeping arrangements. Half the population has been literally consumed by demons, you know? I think people have more pressing concerns right now than what we get up to in our wagon. And if anyone doesn't like it, I can just set them on fire. How does that sound?"

 

“It sounds very nice,” says Alucard, stroking a thumb along her cheekbone with a thoughtful expression. “But I think that you are a curiously open-minded human, Sypha Belnades. And you, Trevor, for that matter. Both of you are… unusual."

Sypha sniffs, sticking her chin in the air. “Among the Speakers it is common enough for people to think as I do.”

“Among your people, then, perhaps. But the world at large-”

“Do they have a name for it?” blurts Trevor. “The Speakers?”

Sypha turns to face him, cocking her head to one side. “A name for what?”

“For, uh… y’know. If there’s three people.”

 

“Oh!” she contemplates this for a second. “No, not really. Or, at least, not a different word than for two people. We would just say… well, it depends. Lovers, maybe. Often people don’t really say anything in particular, but you can tell, can’t you? If people care for one another?”

“I suppose so,” says Trevor.

“It’s just… I don’t know, it’s not really a big deal for us.”

Alucard blinks. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

“So, if we go and visit your grandfather-”

Sypha laughs. “Oh, trust me, my grandpa would be more surprised if I _didn’t_ come home with at least two really attractive young men in tow.”

Alucard snorts. “Really?”

“… ok well, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. But no, my grandpa and the rest of my people are not going to be scandalised by your presence. Well.” She glances appraisingly between the two men, and taps her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe yours, Trevor, because they’ve met you and they know how bad you smell.”

“Oy!”

 

She giggles, cupping his face in her hands and pulling him toward her so she can plant a tender kiss on his forehead, and then another on his nose, and then one on his mouth. “No, but really. You’ll be very welcome,” she says. “Both of you.”

“I’ve never been welcome anywhere in my life,” says Trevor. “That’s a point of pride.”

“Well, it is a point of pride you are going to have to drop,” says Sypha, sticking her tongue out at him and grinning, “because you are welcome absolutely anywhere that I go. So there.”

“If you are sure we would be accepted among your people,” says Alucard, his tone still a little tentative, “Then- then I would like to go there, first. I just… being with you both has felt- it felt like I was at home again. Finally. Not some awful nightmarish place that looks like home but isn’t. And I don’t- I don’t want to lose that.”

 

Sypha smiles softly. “Well of course you won’t. It's not like the castle is going anywhere any more-"

"Because you broke the engine," snorts Trevor.

She ignores him, "-so we can come back, any time you like. We're not going away for ever, you know, it's just a little break for you to settle your mind."

Alucard nods, kissing her palm when she reaches out to touch his cheek. "I- yes. Thank you."

"And wherever we go, we’ll be with you, that’s the important thing. Home isn’t about a place, it’s about… caring about people, and people caring about you. Anywhere can be home if you’re in good company.”

“Of course. I- yes. Of course.” Alucard relaxes, just slightly, leaning against Trevor’s shoulder and reaching out to take Sypha’s hand in his as he does. “I haven’t been home in so long.”

“Yeah,” says Trevor, running a gentle hand through Alucard’s hair and letting go of a breath he didn’t quite know he’d been holding. “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

 

“Then welcome home, my darlings,” says Sypha, valiantly attempting to throw her arms around both of them at once and holding on as tight as she can. Trevor grins, letting his eyes slip closed once more in the warm afternoon light, and feels – for the first time in a very long time indeed – entirely at peace.

 

It's good to be home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's.... over??!!
> 
> I honestly cannot believe what a monster this fic turned out to be. I've had such an amazing time writing it and after almost two years of the WORST writers block it just feels so good to be able to actually write again tbh!!
> 
> There are absolutely millions of things about this story that I would probably do very differently if I wrote it again - honestly I think if I ever go back and re-read it I will cringe directly out of existence because I wrote it totally on the fly with very little time to plan or edit and... well, it has all the sorts of flaws that one would expect from such a venture. But you know what? I'm pleased with it anyway, because despite its imperfections I finished it! And I had fun doing it, which I think is the most important thing in some ways.
> 
> In terms of what's coming next - I'm working on a 'missing scene' that contains all the Smut which occurred between chapter 38 and 39, and I'll be posting that separately probably sometime after I get back from Katsucon (which, btw, if anyone is going, I'm gonna be cosplaying Alucard on friday and probs also a bit of saturday so like... if there's a castlevania meet or sth uhhh let me know abt it and i'll be there? I will also have a trevor and a sypha with me & it would be great to meet some fellow fans so!! yeh!!). After THAT there may well be some oneshots if the muse takes me but there's gonna be a bit of a break because I'm working on another multichapter! This time I'm going to fucking actually write and edit it before I start posting because I have LEARNED FROM MY MISTAKES skjasdjajsd. But I'm gonna try and churn it out in a couple months and then I'll post it on maybe a weekly schedule or sth? I'll figure it out. It's going to be a sort of Victorian Gothic au - think Jane Eyre meets Pride and Prejudice only, like, with more threesomes - which is conceptually HUGELY self-indulgent but hey im living my best life. U kno?
> 
> Anyway, I won't ramble on too long here, but before I go I just want to give a HUGE shout-out to everybody who's commented over the time I've been writing - you guys can't possibly know how much every single comment has brightened my day and motivated me to keep going even when writing felt like wading through treacle. I've had a pretty crappy few months in my personal life and it's been such a blessing to have all these kind and thoughtful people leaving such charming messages when I update, it really has. You folk are all stars and I adore you <3
> 
> alright! that's it!!! if ur over 18 please feel free to follow me on twitter @ptolemiawrites (its sometimes nsfw but mostly just me yelling atm) and I'm also on tumblr @moist-von-lipwig which I guess is no longer ever nsfw lol other than in terms of the fact I do say Swearwords but... other than that... but who knows how long tumblr will still be around anyways so!! lmao!! I'm also @ptolemia on pillowfort, which I don't really use much yet but maybe I will more in future ^_^
> 
> i love u all so much!! thank u for reading and bye for now!!!! <33333


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